Development of a Geotechnical Engineering Software Package in R and Its Implementation in the Civil Engineering Curriculum

This study describes the development and implementation of a geotechnical engineering software package within the statistical language and environment R. The software package, aptly named geotech, has the capability to perform a range of geotechnical engineering computations, and represents an additional option in the geotechnical engineer’s toolbox. R is an object-oriented language and environment for statistical computing that is gaining popularity in science and engineering. In addition to the development and features of the software package, this study also describes its implementation in a junior-level introductory course in geotechnical engineering at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts. In the current version of the software package, an emphasis has been placed on calculations that arise within the context of an introductory geotechnical engineering course. The contribution of this project is an open-source, freely available software package for broad usage in geotechnical engineering education, research, and practice. A similar framework could be followed for the development of R packages for other areas of civil engineering practice.