Research on Soil-Water Characteristic Curve of Unsaturated Mixed-Soil in West Sichuan

Abstract

A series of tests are conducted to get the physical composition, physical form and the soil-water characteristic curve in different dry density of three typical composite unsaturated soils in west Sichuan. Test data shows that the variation of physical composition, particle size and dry density can result in great change of soil-water characteristic curve. The bigger the dry density is, the more hydrophilic mineral the soil has, the more gentle the soil-water characteristic curve is, and the higher its residual moisture content is. In addition, under the same water content, matrix suction decreases with less clay content and more content. For the three typical composite unsaturated soils, with relatively bigger water content, the change of soil-water characteristic curve resulting from variation of dry density is less, but with the water content getting smaller, the change becomes clearer.