Shear Strength and Shear-Induced Volume Change Behavior of Unsaturated Soils from a Triaxial Test Program

A series of unsaturated soil triaxial tests were performed on four soils including sand, silt, and a low plasticity clay. Attempts were made to correlate unsaturated soil properties from these tests and data from the literature with soil-water characteristics curve (SWCC), soil gradation, and saturated soil properties. The feasibility of estimating unsaturated soil property functions from saturated soil properties, SWCCs and gradation data, is demonstrated. A hyperbolic model for estimation of the unsaturated soil parameter, ϕb , versus matric suction is presented. Shear induced volume change behavior was also studied, and results are included in this paper. Although not correlated with soil index properties, these shear-induced volume change data are important to complete stress-deformation analyses, and represent a significant addition to the existing data base of unsaturated soil properties.