Can a Civil Engineering Student Be Expelled for Fabricating Soil Triaxial Shear Strength Logs?

A university will summarily expel a civil or geotechnical engineering undergraduate, cancel all soil mechanics and foundation engineering laboratory credits, and report the student to the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) for professional debarment for fabricating soil specimen consolidated undrained (CU) triaxial compression test logs, faking pore water pressure transducer readings, or forging geotechnical laboratory technologist verification signatures without running physical triaxial shear testing experiments. In civil engineering curricula accredited by COREN, geotechnical shear strength evaluation—such as mounting cylindrical undisturbed soil specimens in triaxial cells, applying confining cell pressures ($sigma_3$), saturating with back-pressure, measuring deviator stress ($sigma_1 – sigma_3$) and pore pressures during axial strain, and deriving Mohr-Coulomb effective shear strength parameters ($c’, phi’$)—represents a life-critical structural safety competency; fabricating triaxial testing data subverts high-rise building foundation bearing capacity calculations, conceals catastrophic slope failure and building collapse risks, and violates professional engineering ethics.

Departmental laboratory coordinators and geotechnical testing examiners utilize automated data acquisition pressure logs to detect fabricated experimental submissions.

1. The soil mechanics course lecturer audits submitted practical portfolios and identifies mathematically idealized Mohr stress circles that ignore natural soil specimen fabric non-homogeneities and membrane penetration effects.
2. The chief laboratory technologist checks the geotechnical testing bay sign-in register and confirms that the student never signed out triaxial cells, digital displacement transducers, or de-aired water saturation systems.
3. The technologist checks the electronic data logger audit trail and confirms that no multi-stage triaxial shearing runs were logged under the student’s assigned specimen identifiers during the claimed testing hours.
4. The student is formally issued an academic query requiring them to perform a live triaxial cell assembly, specimen membrane placement, and pore pressure line de-airing protocol.
5. Inability to demonstrate triaxial cell setup or replicate Mohr-Coulomb failure envelope derivations leads to a formal charge of scientific fabrication and academic fraud.
6. The Head of Department transmits an investigative dossier to the Faculty of Engineering Board and the University Central Student Disciplinary Committee (SDC).
7. The student appears before the disciplinary committee to defend their submissions under constitutional principles of fair hearing.
8. The University Senate considers the committee’s findings and ratifies an order of rustication or summary expulsion, notifying COREN to bar future professional licensure.

Acquiring hands-on competency in soil shear strength evaluation is essential for geotechnical engineers who will design multistory building foundations, bridge abutments, and deep structural retaining walls.

• Standardized soil mechanics laboratory manual with approved ASTM D4767 consolidated undrained triaxial testing protocols.
• Raw bench workbook recording confining pressures, axial strain percentages, deviator stress loads, and pore water pressures.
• Geotechnical laboratory sign-in register confirming equipment allocation and test bay usage.
• Plotted Mohr-Coulomb shear strength failure envelopes displaying effective cohesion ($c’$) and angle of internal friction ($phi’$).

Students must record actual experimental measurements honestly, accounting for specimen barrel distortion and membrane leakage errors, rather than manufacturing idealized shear strength data.

Under COREN professional regulations and university examination codes, fabricating foundation soil testing data is classified as severe academic fraud, carrying mandatory expulsion and total debarment from the civil engineering profession nationwide.

Maintaining rigorous laboratory ethics ensures that civil engineering diplomates and graduates develop sound technical judgement required to design safe, resilient, and enduring geotechnical foundations.