Stress-strain relationship of unsaturated cohesive soil

Abstract

A moisture-content based constitutive model was proposed based on the hyperbolic model as an attempt to move towards the implementation of unsaturated soil mechanics into routine geotechnical engineering practice. The stress-strain behavior of in-situ soil at a depth of 5 m was investigated by conducting undrained triaxial compression tests using the remolded soil samples. The test results show that the stress-strain relationship of unsaturated cohesive soil is still hyperbolic. The values of parameters a and b given in the model decrease with increasing the confining pressure for soil samples with the same moisture content and increase with increasing the moisture content for soil samples under the same confining pressure. The relationships between parameters a, b and moisture content were studied for confining pressures of 100, 150, 200 and 250 kPa. The comparison between the measured and predicted stress-strain curves for an additional group of soil samples, having a moisture content of 25.4%, shows that the proposed moisture content-dependent hyperbolic model provides a good prediction of stress-strain behavior of unsaturated cohesive soil.

Keywords

unsaturated cohesive soil / moisture content / triaxial compression test / stress-strain relationship