The Relationship of the Unsaturated Soil Shear Strength Function to the Soil-Water Characteristic Curve

Abstract

The measurement of soil parameters, such as the permeability and shear strength functions, used to describe unsaturated soil behaviour can be expensive, difficult and often impractical to obtain. This paper proposes a model for predicting the shear strength (versus matric suction) function of unsaturated soils. The prediction model uses the soil-water characteristic curve and the shear strength parameters of the saturated soil (i.e., effective cohesion and effective angle of internal friction). Once a reasonable estimate of the soil-water characteristic curve is obtained, satisfactory predictions of the shear strength function can be made for the unsaturated soil. Closed-form solutions for the shear strength function of unsaturated soils are obtained for cases where a simple soil-water characteristic equation is used in the prediction model.