Tensile Strength of Compacted Clayey Soil
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 141, Issue 4
Abstract
Tensile strength of soil plays an important role in controlling the cracking and tensile failure of many earth structures. In this investigation, a direct tensile test apparatus was developed to determine the tensile strength of compacted clayey soil over a broad range of water contents (4.3–28.5%) and with different dry densities (). The results show that the tensile strength of compacted clayey soil significantly depends on water content. The tensile strength characteristic curve (TSCC) exhibits one peak value occurring at the critical water content around 11.5%. With increasing water content, the tensile strength increases at the dry side of and then decreases at the wet side of it. Generally, with the increase of dry density, the tensile strength also increases. Moreover, a modified model is proposed to describe the tensile strength characteristics of compacted clayey soil, and it is validated by the obtained test data.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to give special thanks for Dr. Sue Struthers for improving this paper. This work was gratefully supported by the National Science Foundation for Excellent Young Scholars (Grant No. 41322019), Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41230636), Opening fund of State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection (Chengdu University of Technology) (Grant No. SKLGP2013K010), National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, No. 2011CB710605), and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK2011339). Also, the authors extend their thanks to Mr. Zhang Qi, Mr. Liu Bao-Sheng, Mr. Tang Wei, and Mr. Zhu Kun at Nanjing University for their contributions to the work.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 141 • Issue 4 • April 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 17, 2013
Accepted: Nov 18, 2014
Published online: Dec 15, 2014
Published in print: Apr 1, 2015
Discussion open until: May 15, 2015
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