Journal Published Online: 03 February 2021
Volume 44, Issue 5

A Unified Approach for Establishing Soil Water Retention and Volume Change Behavior of Soft Soils

CODEN: GTJODJ

Abstract

The assumption of treating the specimen volume as constant while experimentally determining the soil water retention curve (SWRC) of soils is valid only for nonplastic, granular soils. Fine-grained soils usually undergo significant volume change during dewatering and densification, and therefore such an assumption is misleading, even falsifying. The need for developing an easy-to-use lab-scale technique that can enable continuous monitoring of the evolutions in volume, suction, and moisture content of a progressively drying soft soil specimen is evident in the field of characterizing unsaturated soils. Such a method is relevant to establishing SWRC and soil shrinkage curve (SSC) of soft soils that exhibit an appreciable degree of deformation upon subjection to dewatering. To this end, a simple yet improvised method based on the balloon technique incorporating a commercially available high-capacity polymer tensiometer has been proposed to establish SWRC-SSC of soft soils. A comparison between the SWRC and SSC obtained through the proposed method and the conventional methods demonstrated a satisfactory degree of agreement. Densification of the materials realized under the influence of mechanical and hydraulic stresses has been discussed through a comparative analysis between the results from the proposed method and one-dimensional odometer test. For soft soils, the proposed method is particularly appropriate for establishing SWRC in terms of volumetric moisture content and degree of saturation through just a single test.

Author Information

Mishra, Partha Narayan
Geotechnical Engineering Centre, School of Civil Engineering, Level 5, Advanced Engineering Building (49), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Scheuermann, Alexander
Geotechnical Engineering Centre, School of Civil Engineering, Level 5, Advanced Engineering Building (49), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Bhuyan, M. Habibullah
Geotechnical Engineering Centre, School of Civil Engineering, Level 5, Advanced Engineering Building (49), The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Pages: 20
Price: $25.00
Related
Reprints and Permissions
Reprints and copyright permissions can be requested through the
Copyright Clearance Center
Details
Stock #: GTJ20200009
ISSN: 0149-6115
DOI: 10.1520/GTJ20200009