Mechanical Behavior of Unsaturated Soils Subjected to Impact Loading

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on unsaturated soils. A designed test setup was used and the impact loading was applied with a drop hammer. The experimental results show that the soil properties, including water content, density, void ratio, and saturation, changed because of impact loading, and these variations of the soil properties affected the matrix suctions of the unsaturated soils. The impact hole depth increased with the increasing impact energy and gradually reached a critical value. The dynamic stress in soil increased with the increased impact loading. The results obtained in this work can be applied to optimize the effective reinforcement region of soils in the dynamic compaction construction.