Effect of Water Content on Apparent Cohesion of Soils from Landslide Sites

Abstract

There are many empirical equations published for unsaturated fine-grained soils. However, there is only one empirical equation established for silty sand using the shear-box test and filter-paper-based suction test, but with the suction range of 0 to 200 kPa. It is reported that there is a significant discrepancy between the predicted values and test results of apparent cohesion within the range of 0 to 100 kPa for unsaturated coarse-grained soils. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of water content on apparent cohesion and predict apparent cohesion for coarse-grained soils within the range of 0 to 100 kPa using shear-box test and suction test results without much inconsistency. In this research, soil samples from the rainfall-induced landslide sites were obtained; laboratory tests such as soil-classification tests, shear-box tests and consolidated undrained triaxial tests were carried out. Test results were analyzed, and the findings are presented. When the water content is increased from 0% to 30%, there is a reduction of 89% in apparent cohesion on average. A newly developed prediction model for apparent cohesion based on the low range of matric suction from 0 to 100 kPa for unsaturated coarse-grained soils is introduced in this paper and compared with published models.

Keywords

• shear strength
• apparent cohesion
• water content
• rainfall-induced landslides