Physical meaning and mechanical effects of the neutral stress and effective stress in unsaturated soils

The physical meaning of the neutral stress and effective stress for soils is still unclear, which leads to the neutral stress for unsaturated soils being totally ignored and increasingly complicated expressions for effective stress. To solve these problems, we establish an extended three-phase physical model for unsaturated soils, including capillary water, pore air, and generalized soil skeleton (GSS) and then derive a generalized Terzaghi’s effective stress equation, stating that the effective stress is equal to total stress minus neutral stress. In our equation, the neutral stress consists of three components, i.e. the homogenized pore fluid pressure, the stress acting on the cross sections of soil particles, and the stress acting on the contacts between particles. The mechanical effects of the neutral stress can be appreciable, especially in unsaturated clays at a relatively low saturation. The effective stress is found to be the stress that is transmitted through GSS. The local stress, induced by physicochemical forces, cementation, and surface tension, is not transmitted through GSS, and thus, it should not be added into effective stress equation. The mechanical effects of the effective stress are controlled by the mechanical parameters of GSS expressed as a function of suction besides the effective stress itself. Integrating the mechanical effects of neutral stress and effective stress, a general framework is proposed for describing the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils. Under the framework, the proposed shear strength equation is in very good agreement with the experiment data reported in the literature.