Prediction of soil–water characteristic curve for Malan loess in Loess Plateau of China

To predict the soil-water characteristic curve(i.e.SWCC)of natural and remoulded Malan loess from soil physical properties,one-point methods for determining the SWCC that are much simpler than experimental methods are proposed.The predicted SWCC is presented in the form of the BRUTSAERT equation,in which the four model parameters can be estimated from soil physical properties using the best correlations obtained in the present study along with one measured data point.The proposed one-point methods are validated using the measured SWCC data reported in the literature.The results of validation studies suggest that the proposed one-point methods can provide reasonable prediction of the SWCC for natural and remoulded Malan loess.The measured data point should be within the transition zone;the measured suction is suggested between25to100kPa for natural loess,while between100to500kPa for remoulded loess.

Experimental study of two saturated natural soils and their saturated remoulded soils under three consolidated undrained stress paths

In this paper,an experimental investigation is conducted to study the mechanical behavior of saturated natural loess,saturated natural filling in ground fissure and their corresponding saturated remoulded soils under three consolidated undrained triaxial stress tests,namely,conventional triaxial compression test(CTC),triaxial compression test(TC)and reduced triaxial compression test(RTC).The test results show that stress-strain relation,i.e.strain-softening or strain-hardening,is remarkably influenced by the structure,void ratio,stress path and confining pressure.Natural structure,high void ratio,TC stress path,RTC stress path and low confining pressures are favorable factors leading to strain-softening.Excess pore pressure during shearing is significantly affected by stress path.The tested soils are different from loose sand on character of strain-softening and are different from common clay on excess pore water pressure behavior.The critical states in p′-q space in CTC,TC and RTC tests almost lie on one line,which indicates that the critical state is independent of the above stress paths.As for remoulded loess or remoulded filling,the critical state line(CSL)and isotropic consolidation line(ICL)in e-log p′space are almost straight,while for natural loess or natural filling,in e-log p′space there is a turning point on the CSL,which is similar to the ICL.