Abstract

DIAZ-CORAL, José Miguel; VALENCIA-GONZALEZ, Yamile  and  CARVALHO, Jose Camapum de. Validation of a methodology to obtain the shear failure envelope of unsaturated compacted soils. Entramado [online]. 2021, vol.17, n.1, pp.290-301.  Epub May 05, 2021. ISSN 1900-3803.  https://doi.org/10.18041/1900-3803/entramado.1.7303.

Obtaining the failure envelope of unsaturated soils requires specialized equipment, which is expensive and difficult to access. Nevertheless, by combining simple laboratory tests like direct shear test on saturated samples, indirect tension test, and soil suction measurements by filter paper it is also possible to determine the envelope. This research aims to validate this latter methodology on a residual origin silt material from the city of Medellin, Colombia, which is compacted to the maximum dry density through the standard proctor test.

The validation is carried out by repeating a series of direct shear tests for different suction values. It was verified that it is possible to find the shear failure envelope of a compacted fine-grained residual soil for different suction conditions, using the direct shear test under consolidated drained conditions, suction by the filter paper method, and the indirect tension test, when no suction controlled shear equipment is available.

Keywords : Unsaturated soils; direct shear test; indirect tension test; water retention curve; extended failure envelope.

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