Tensile strength of unsaturated coarse and fine-grained soils

Soils at the ground surface experience multiple cycles of drying and wetting. On drying, soils shrinkage cracks may appear. The development depends on tensile strength soil. Such increase permeability soil can cause slopes earth structures to fail due rainfall. Several models have been proposed for unsaturated considering effect matric suction. However, are either cohesionless (coarse-grained) or clayey (fine-grained) soils. were shown be different in their definition suction stress presence absence a cohesion term. As data fine-grained with same structure soil–water characteristic curve (SWCC) lacking literature, Brazilian tests SWCC conducted compacted from two residual formations. test highlighted problem friction angle used existing models. Using general form extended Mohr–Coulomb criterion Mohr circle, new model applicable both coarse-grained was proposed. perform better than using independent data.