Constant Water Content Compression Tests on Unsaturated Compacted Soil with Suction Measurement Using a HCT
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 16, Issue 6
Abstract
Soil compaction is a process used in different engineering works; from the most complex to the simplest, the quality of soil compaction indiscriminately affects the final condition of the compacted soil in terms of engineering projects. Moreover, aspects such as time of construction and cost are extremely important in works that require compacted soils, particularly because of the climate in tropical regions. In these regions, the abundance of residual soils makes this material a preferential candidate for use in engineering projects. Considering that most compacted soils will remain in an unsaturated condition, it is extremely important to study and to characterize these materials, not only in the saturated condition, but also in an unsaturated state. Within this context, this study analyzes the shear strength behavior of a compacted residual soil of gneiss, collected in two sampling campaigns from an area located at the experimental site of the University of São Paulo in São Paulo, Brazil. The focus lies in determining the surface failure envelope for this soil by conducting several triaxial compression tests under saturated and unsaturated conditions. The interpretation of the results is discussed based on the use of the data obtained with the specimen in a saturated state. Thirty-six triaxial tests were performed, 18 of them with direct suction measurement using a high-capacity tensiometer (HCT). Results demonstrated the advantages of the constant water content tests (CWs) with the use of a HCT, such as their simplicity and reduced testing time for obtaining the surface failure envelope.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the following institutions for their fundamental financial support: Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ), the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), and the Organization of American States (OAS).
References
Brasilian Society for Foundation Engineering and Geothecnical Services (ABEF). (1989). “Research on foundation engineering.” Proc., XII Int. Conf. on Soil mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 86.
Bishop, A. W., Alpan, J., Blight, G. E, and Donald, I. B. (1960). “Factors controlling the strength of partly saturated cohesive soils.” Proc., Conf. on Shear Strength of Cohesive Soils, ASCE, 503–532.
Bishop, A. W., and Blight, G. E. (1963). “Some aspects of effective stress in saturated and unsaturated soils.” Géotechnique, 13(3), 177–197.
Carnero, G. G. (2014). “Contribution to the study of the behavior of a quasi-saturated unsaturated compacted soil.” M.Sc. dissertation, Univ. of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (in Portuguese).
Colmenares, J. E., and Ridley, A. M. (2002). “Stress-strain and strength relationships for a reconstituted clayey silt.” Proc., Third Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils (UNSAT 2002), J. F. T. Juca, T. M. P. de Campos, and F. A. M. Marinho, eds., Vol. 2, Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, the Netherlands, 481–484.
Georgetti, G. B., and Vilar, O. M. (2011). “Constant water content triaxial compression test with a compacted.” Unsaturated soils, Alonso and E. Gens, ed., Taylor & Francis Group, London, 1419–1424.
Gulhati, S., and Satija, D. J. (1981).“Shear strength of partially saturated soils.” Proc., 10th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Balkema, Stockholm, Sweden, 609–612.
Haghighi, A., Medero, G., Marinho, F., and Woodward, P. (2013). “Discussion of ‘critical review of the methodologies employed for soil suction measurement’ by S. Sreedeep and Devendra N. Singh.” Int. J. Geomech., 326–326.
Ho, D. Y. F., and Fredlund, D. G. (1982). “Multi-stage triaxial tests for unsaturated soils.” Geotech. Test. J., 5(1), 18–25.
Jotisankasa, A., Coop, M., and Ridley, A. (2009). “The mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated compacted silty clay.” Géotechnique, 59(5), 415–428.
Marinho, F. A. M. (2000). “Discussion on ‘The use of miniature pore pressure transducers in measuring matric suction in unsaturated soils’ by K. K. Mualleetharan and K. K. Granger.” Geotech. Test. J., 23(4), 532–535.
Marinho, F. A. M., and Chandler, R. J. (1993). “Aspects of the behavior of clays on drying.” Unsaturated soils, Geotechnical special publication, 39, S. L. Houston and W. K. Wray, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 77–90.
Marinho, F. A. M., Kuwagima, R. M., Standing, J. R., and Fulton, P. S. J. (2002). “Exploring the validity of extending Hilf´s method to take into account initial soil suction.” Proc., Third Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, UNSAT 2002, J. F. T. Juca,T. M. P. de Campos, and F. A. M. Marinho, eds., Vol. 2, Swets & Zeitlinger, Lisse, the Netherlands, 641–46.
Marinho, F. A. M., and Pinto, C. S. (1997). “Soil suction measurement using a tensiometer.” Proc., Int. Symp. on Recent Developments in Soil and Pavement Mechanics, Balkema, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 249–254.
Marinho, F. A. M., and Stuermer, M. M. (2000). “The influence of the compaction on the SWCC of a residual soil.” Advances in unsaturated geotechnics, Geotechnical special publication, 99, C. D. Shackelford, S. L. Houston, and N.-Y. Chang, eds., ASCE, Reston, VA, 125–141.
Meilani, I., Rahardjo, H., Leong, E., and Fredlund, D. G. (2002). “Mini suction probe for matric suction measurements.” Can. Geotech. J., 39(6), 1427–1432.
Muñoz-Castelblanco J., Delage P., Pereira J. M., and Cui Y. J. (2014). “New triaxial device for unsaturated soils with local measurements.” Proc., Sixth Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, UNSAT 2014, Vol. 2, N. Khalili, A. Russell, and A. Khoshghalb, eds.,1617–1622.
Nogami, J. S., and Villibor, D. F. (1995). “Low cost pavement using lateritic soils,” Villibor, São Paulo, Brazil, 213 (in Portuguese).
Oliveira, O. M. (2004). “Study on the shear strength of a compacted residual unsaturated soil.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (in Portuguese).
Orlando, P. D. G. (2015). “Experimental evaluation of the interaction between a cohesive soil and a geosynthetic strap under unsaturated conditions.” M.Sc. dissertation, Univ. of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil (in Portuguese).
Rahardjo, H., Heng, O. B., and Choon, L. E. (2004). “Shear strength of a compacted residual soil from consolidated drained and constant water content triaxial tests.” Can. Geotech. J., 41(3), 421–436.
Ridley, A. M., and Burland, J. B. (1993). “A new instrument for the measurement of soil moisture suction.” Géotechnique, 43(2), 321–324.
Ridley, A. M., and Burland, J. B. (1994). “Discussion: A new instrument for the measurement of soil moisture suction.” Géotechnique, 44(3), 551–556.
Rohm, S. A., and Vilar, O. M. (1995). “Shear strength of unsaturated sandy soil.” Proc., First Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soil (UNSAT 95), E. E. Alonzo and P. Delage, eds., Vol. 1, Balkema, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 189–193.
Sreedeep, S., and Singh, D. (2011). “Critical review of the methodologies employed for soil suction measurement.” Int. J. Geomech., 99–104.
Thu, T., Rahardjo, H., and Leong, E. (2006). “Shear strength and pore-water pressure characteristics during constant water content triaxial tests.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 411–419.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 16 • Issue 6 • December 2016
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 24, 2014
Accepted: Sep 1, 2015
Published online: Jan 5, 2016
Discussion open until: Jun 5, 2016
Published in print: Dec 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.