Prediction of the wetting-induced collapse behaviour using the soil-water characteristic curve

Abstract

Collapsible soils go through three distinct phases in response to matric suction decrease during wetting: pre-collapse phase, collapse phase and post-collapse phase. It is reasonable and conservative to consider a strain path that includes a pre-collapse phase in which constant volume is maintained and a collapse phase that extends to the final matric suction to be experienced by collapsible soils during wetting. Upon this assumption, a method is proposed for predicting the collapse behaviour due to wetting. To use the proposed method, two parameters, critical suction and collapse rate, are required. The former is the suction value below which significant collapse deformations take place in response to matric suction decease, and the later is the rate at which void ratio reduces with matric suction in the collapse phase. The value of critical suction can be estimated from the water-entry value taking account of both the microstructure characteristics and collapse mechanism of fine-grained collapsible soils; the wetting soil-water characteristic curve thus can be used as a tool. Five sets of data of wetting tests on both compacted and natural collapsible soils reported in the literature were used to validate the proposed method. The critical suction values were estimated from the water-entry value with parameter a that is suggested to vary between 0.10 and 0.25 for compacted soils and to be lower for natural collapsible soils. The results of a field permeation test in collapsible loess soils were also used to validate the proposed method. The relatively good agreement between the measured and estimated collapse deformations suggests that the proposed method can provide reasonable prediction of the collapse behaviour due to wetting.