Abstract
Recent research into the behaviour of soils has shown that it is in fact much more complex than can be described by the mechanics of saturated soils. Nowadays the trend of investigations has shifted towards the unsaturated state. Despite the significant progress that has been made so far, there are still a lot of unanswered questions related to the behaviour of unsaturated soils. For this reason, in the field of geotechnics some new concepts are developed, which include the study of soil suction. Most research into soil suction has involved clayey and silty material, whereas up until recently no data have been available about measurements in very stiff preconsolidated sandy silt. Very stiff preconsolidated sandy silt is typical of the Krško Basin, where it is planned that some very important geotechnical structures will be built, so that knowledge about the behaviour of such soils at increased or decreased water content is essential. Several different methods can be used for soil suction measurements. In the paper the results of measurements carried out on very stiff preconsolidated sandy silt in a Bishop - Wesley double-walled triaxial cell are presented and compared with the results of soil suction measurements performed by means of a potentiometer (WP4C). All the measurement results were evaluated taking into account already known results given in the literature, using the three most commonly used mathematical models. Until now a lot of papers dealing with suction measurements in normal Consolidated and preconsolidated clay have been published. Measurements on very stiff preconsolidated sandy silt, as presented in this paper were not supported before.
Highlights
Recent research into the behaviour of soils has shown that it is much more complex than can be described by the mechanics of saturated soils
The goal of the suction measurements was to determine the value of suction of very stiff preconsolidated sandy silt in the Krško Basin, where it is expected that some large geotechnical structures will be built in the few years
The stiff sandy silt which was studied in the Bishop-Wesley double-walled triaxial cell was similar but not identical to the sandy silt which was used for the measurements in the potentiometer
Summary
Recent research into the behaviour of soils has shown that it is much more complex than can be described by the mechanics of saturated soils. Despite the significant progress that has been made so far, there are still a lot of unanswered questions related to the behaviour of unsaturated soils This refers in particular to the changes in volume and strength which occur in the soil. The soil suction has been defined as the energy level of the pore water in soils (Suescun Florez, 2010) It is the result of the adsorption of water onto mineral grains, together with a capillary phenomenon and the osmotic effects of the salt in the pore water. It can be labelled as a measure of the energy that attracts water into the structure of the soil, or keeps it there. Total soil suction is defined as the sum of the matrix suction and the osmotic suction, and is written as:
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