INTRODUCTION TO SOIL
BEHAVIOUR
Julio Esteban Colmenares Montañez
Titular Professor
Ciudad Universitaria, Bogotá D.C., August 2015
From previous session…
• Knowledge of soil composition is a useful indicator of
probable ranges of geotechnical properties and their
variability and sensitivity to changes in environmental
conditions.
• Quantitative values of properties for analysis and design
cannot be derived from compositional data alone.
• Information on composition can be helpful for explaining
unusual behavior, identification of expansive soils,
selection of sampling and sample handling procedures,
choice of soil stabilization methods, and prediction of
probable future behaviour.
Contents
• Nature of soils
– Soil formation
– Soil Mineralogy
– Soil Composition and engineering
properties
– The concept of effective stress
THE EFFECTIVE STRESS PRINCIPLE:
• Saturated soil of whatever type may be considered as a
skeleton of solid particles in contact with each other and
with the surrounding voids filled with water.
• Soil is a particulate material.
• For analysis it is treated as a continuum and the size of the
particles are neglected in relation to the size of the elements
being considered.
• The effective stress principle is the cornerstone of saturated
soil mechanics. It may be introduced by first defining
“effective stress” and then stating the principle.
• Effective stress: see figure
Any plane through an element of soil has acting
on it a resultant normal stress σn and a shear
stress τ. The water in the pores will be under a
pressure u known as the pore water pressure.
The effective normal stress σn´ acting across the
plane is the difference between the total normal
pressure and the pore water pressure:
σn´= σ – u
Since water cannot carry shear, a shear stress
will always be an effective stress.
i.e. τ = τ´
An effective stress may be thought of as that part
of the total stress that is transmitted through the
soil skeleton
Principle of effective stress: Terzaghi (1936) 1st
International Conference on SM and FE. Vol 1: 54-56.
• The stresses at any point of a section through a mass of
soil can be computed from the total principal stresses σ1,
σ2 , σ3 which act at this point. If the voids of the soil are
filled with water under the stress u, the total principal
stress consist of two parts. One part u acts in the water
and in the solid in every direction with equal intensity. It
is called the pore water pressure (Terzaghi called it the
neutral stress). The balance: σ1´= σ1 – u, σ2´= σ2 – u,
σ3´= σ3 – u represents an excess over the pore pressure
u and has it seat exclusively in the solid phase of the
soil. This fraction of the totalprincipal stress is called the
effective principal stress.
• Application: all measurable effects of a change of stress such as
compression, distortion or a change in shearing resistance are due
exclusively to changes in effective stress (taking due regard to time
effects: creep, ageing, etc).
• The validity of this principle for saturated soils has been
demonstrated experimentally many times.
• It follows that to define the effective stress on any element of soil it is
necessary to know not only the total stress, but also the pore water
pressure.
• That is why ground water conditions play such vital role in ground
engineering problems – particularly for retaining walls and slopes.
Changes in ground water pressure without changes in total pressure
can take place because of seepage, water table fluctuations,
consolidation or swelling. All these effects will give rise to changes
in effective stress and result in important, sometimes catastrophic
soil behaviour.
• Neglecting creep, if there is no distortion or volume
change during a change in total stress there is no
change of effective stress.
• A decrease in σ´ causes swelling and weakening – could
result from a decrease in σ with u constant or increase in
u with σ constant.
• An increase in σ´ causes compression and strength
increase –could result from increase in σ with u constant
or decrease in u with σ constant
• The application of the effective stress principle is an
empirically established concept –a working hypothesis.
• It says nothing about the way the stresses are
transmitted through the soil skeleton – the term
“intergranular stress” should not therefore be used. In
clay soils attemps to treat the concept in terms of
interparticle forces run into difficulties as to “what is a
particle?” i.e. does it include the chemichally bound
water?
• Similarly the principle says nothing about the distribution
of stress within the pore fluid adjacent to a clay particle.
The pore water pressure is simply the pressure
measured through a porous tip which is much larger than
the grains.
• The key feature of the principle is that in predicting
strength and deformation, we only need to know the
appropriate effective stresses and their changes and not
the independent values of σ and u. This is a tremendous
advantage.
• However, in the field, we will always have to measure u
in order to obtain σ´.
• In the laboratory we need only to apply the appropriate
values of (σ – u) and need not concern ourselves with
their separate absolute values.
Partly saturated soils
• In partly saturated soils the water phase is not
continuous. As a result changes in uw (pore water
pressure) can give rise to different types of micro-
structure, or fabric, from those induced by changes in σ.
• Thus changes in degree of saturation due to changes in
uw amounts to a change in material e.g shrinkage
cracks, crumb structures, micro fissuring due to
dessication.
Total stress change Total stress constant
Uw=constant Uw→0
Shrinkage
Cracks
(a) (c)
• so
Collapse of grain structure on wetting. Increase of
w ater
il p articles
uw at constant σ (i.e σ´ decreases) yet volume
decreases.
u
w<0
(b) (d)
• Thus for partly saturated soils, the
absolute values of suction and applied
stresses need to be reproduced in the
laboratory if behaviour is to be understood.
• In these circumstances the effective stress
principle loses much of its practical value
and can be misleading.
Tutorial
• The strata in the flat bottom of a valley consist of 3m of
coarse gravel overlying 12m of clay. Beneath the clay is
fissured sandstone of relatively high permeability.
• The water table in the gravel is 0,6m below ground level.
The water in the sandstone is under artesian pressure
corresponding to a standpipe level of 6m above ground
level.
• The unit weights of the soil are:
– Gravel (above water table) 16,8 kN/m3
– Gravel (below water table – saturated) 20,8 kN/m3
– Clay (saturated) 21,6 kN/m3
– Water 9,8 kN/m3
1. Plot total and effective vertical stresses against depth.
a) For initial ground water levels
b) Assuming that the ground water level in the gravel is
rapidly lowered by 1.8 m. (*)
c) Assuming that the water level in the gravel is
unchanged, but that relief wells rapidly lower the
water pressure in the sandstone by 5.5 m (*).
d) Assuming that the relief wells are pumped to reduce
the water level in the sandstone to 15 m below
ground level. (*)
(*) For initial and long term conditions.
2. To what depth can a wide dry excavation be
made into the clay before the bottom bows up
(neglect side shear).
a) With initial artesian pressure in sandstone,
b) With relief wells rapidly reducing the pressure to
0,6m above the ground level,
c) With relief wells rapidly reducing the pressure to
15,0m below the ground level?
3. a) A dry excavation 9m in depth (below GL) is
required. If the ratio of total vertical stress to
uplift pressure of 1.3 is required for safety, to
what depth must the water level in the
sandstone be lowered?
b)If the coefficient of volume change mv of the
clay is 1.87 x 10-4 m2/kN to what extend would
the clay layer outside of the excavation
eventually decrease in thickness if the artesian
pressure were permanently lowered by the
amount calculated in 3a).
4. If instead of the excavation, the water
level in the sandstone was raised to 15,2m
above ground level due to impounding
behind a dam upstream of the site, at what
depth in the undisturbed clay would the
vertical effective stress be least and what
would this value be?
