Water Retention Curve with Different Void Ratios over a Wide Suction Range and Its Application to Shear Strength
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 22, Issue 8
Abstract
Shear strength (τ) analysis has received considerable attention, because of its importance when designing various geotechnical structures, such as tunnels, retaining walls, shallow foundations, and slopes. Predicting the unsaturated τ from water retention curves (WRCs) is an existing method. The validity of this method for the prediction of unsaturated τ over a wide suction (ψ) range has been discussed by several researchers. However, the existing method ignores the influence of void ratio (e), which plays a strong part in the water holding capacity and the τ analysis of unsaturated soils. Therefore, according to an existing WRC equation that distinguishes capillary water and adsorbed water, a new WRC equation was proposed to consider the effect of e on the water holding capacity. In addition, using the e dependent WRC, a new method that predicted the τ of unsaturated silts or silty clays at various e over a wide ψ range (that included the residual zone) was proposed. The prediction of τ by the proposed method produced better predictions for experimental data than that of the existing method.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U2034204, 52078031), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (8202038), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020JBM048, 2020CZ002), and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC-2019-Z-09).
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- b
- parameter that describes the effect of void ratio on ψc;
- c′
- effective cohesion of saturated soil;
- e
- actual void ratio;
- e0
- reference void ratio;
- erfc()
- complementary error function;
- M
- slope of critical state line;
- Ms
- slope of failure line when ψ > ψmax;
- p′
- effective mean stress;
- pn
- net mean stress;
- q
- deviator stress;
- qmax
- deviator stress that corresponds to maximum effective stress;
- Sr
- degree of saturation;
- Sra
- adsorptive component of degree of saturation;
- Src
- capillary component of degree of saturation;
- ζ
- standard deviation of logtransformed soil pore radius;
- θ0
- adsorptive volumetric water content when ψ = 1 kPa (i.e., does not consider capillary condensation);
- θs
- saturated volumetric water content;
- σ′
- effective normal stress;
- σn
- net normal stress;
- τ
- shear strength;
- τmax
- shear strength that corresponds to maximum effective stress;
- ϕ′
- effective angle of internal friction of saturated soil;
- ϕs
- angle of internal friction when ψ > ψmax;
- χ
- unsaturated effective stress parameter;
- χmax
- effective stress parameter that corresponds to maximum effective stress;
- ψ
- suction;
- ψc
- suction that corresponds to the median pore radius at e;
- ψc0
- suction that corresponds to the median pore radius at e0;
- ψd
- suction at oven dryness; and
- ψmax
- suction that corresponds to maximum effective stress.
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Received: Apr 28, 2021
Accepted: Mar 28, 2022
Published online: Jun 1, 2022
Published in print: Aug 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Nov 1, 2022
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