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Study on the relationship between matric suction, unconfined compressive strength, and uniaxial tensile strength for compacted expansive soils

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Abstract

The uniaxial tensile strength (UTS) of soils is conventionally considered as a fraction of suction stress and suction stress is believed to be the product of matric suction and the kth power of effective saturation. The effective saturation is hard to be accurately determined while k, a parameter used to balance the surging matric suction as the soil dries, is rather ambiguous in its physical meaning. This study aims to develop an equation for describing the relationship among matric suction, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and UTS. To this end, two stages of experiments involving unconfined compression test, uniaxial tensile test, and matric suction measurement test on expansive soils are performed on two batches of expansive soils. Results show that although no one-to-one relation could be found between UCS and UTS, there is a sound linear relationship between matric suction and the ratio of UCS to UTS. Based on this fact, a two-parameter equation correlating matric suction, UCS, and UTS, was established, and the physical meanings of both parameters are interpreted.

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All data, models, or codes generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

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Funding

The authors would like to express great gratitude to National Key Research and Development Project (Grant No. 2019YFC1509800). The authors also wish to acknowledge National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41630633, 41877211) and Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (Grant No. 1808085MD106) for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Yang Chen & Yongfu Xu

  2. School of Urban Railway Transportation, Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Lei Wang & Tianyi Li

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  1. Yang Chen
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  2. Yongfu Xu
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  3. Lei Wang
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  4. Tianyi Li
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Contributions

Yang Chen: Methodology, Data curation, Writing – original draft. Yongfu Xu: Conceptualization, Supervision, Reviewing and Editing. Lei Wang: Reviewing and Editing. Tianyi Li: Reviewing.

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Correspondence to Yongfu Xu.

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Chen, Y., Xu, Y., Wang, L. et al. Study on the relationship between matric suction, unconfined compressive strength, and uniaxial tensile strength for compacted expansive soils. Environ Earth Sci 83, 165 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-024-11470-z

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