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a Inst. for Plant Nutrition and Soil Sci., Univ. of Kiel, Olshausenstrasse 40, 24118 Kiel, Germany
b School of Mathematics, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, U.K
* Corresponding author (t.baumgartl{at}soils.unikiel.de).
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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| Volume Change by Internal and External Stresses |
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For a complete description of the stress state, both the external and internal stresses have to be combined as it is formulated in the Terzaghi equation (Terzaghi and Jelinek, 1954) for a two-phase system and in the extended form for a three-phase system, first described by Bishop and Blight (1963). This relationship is expressed as follows:
![]() | [1] |
The stresses explained by the matric water potential of Eq. [1] represent the tensile stresses (Snyder and Miller, 1985), whereas the effective stresses are represented by the mechanical stress state.
The
-factor of Eq. [1] accounts for the amount of water-filled pores which is, when defined as stress states, dependent on the matric water potential. Under saturated conditions, the parameter
= 1 and Eq. [1] reduces to the general Terzaghi equation. It could be shown that this factor is explained within certain limits by the water retention curve (Baumgartl, 2002). The calculation of the tensile stresses is possible as long as the pore size distribution for each state of water potential is known (in fact, it is often assumed that the pore size distribution is constant). In principle, a calculation is possible even in soils with volume change (shrinkage or swelling, compaction), when the deformation behavior is known (Katou et al., 1987; O'Sullivan and Ball, 1993). Because volume change as a combination of compaction and shrinkage is very complex, deformation due to mechanical or hydraulic stresses are in the following viewed and modeled separately.
| Adoption of the StressStrain Relationship with a Hydraulic Model |
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(water volume/volume of solids). Figure 2
shows several possible scenarios.
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= 0 at drained conditions) may result in curve II (stressstrain relationship). The slope is defined by de/d
. A steep slope at higher stresses (virgin compression curve) can be distinguished from a less steep slope at low mechanical stresses (preconsolidation curve).
Taking the equivalent relation for hydraulic stress (
) vs. void ratio (e), the void ratio will decrease less with decreasing matric potential due to the emptying of pore space and hence reduced tensile stress. A possible relationship may be curve I in Fig. 2 and can be characterized as shrinkage-strain relationship. The slope at each point is defined by de/d
and has low values at very low water potentials (preshrinkage curve) and very high water potentials (residual shrinkage curve). The curve in between these two ranges of water potential depict the virgin shrinkage curve.
Referring the parameter moisture ratio
to mechanical stress
and assuming saturated conditions (with
= 0 at drained conditions), then this relationship is equivalent to curve II because
= e. The slope is defined by d
/d
. When referring matric water potential
to moisture ratio
, the result may be curve III and describes the water retention curve (after Fredlund and Rahardjo, 1993).
Similar considerations have been conducted by Toll (1995). He compared the shrinkage behavior of normally consolidated soil and overconsolidated samples with the moisture ratio and void ratio. He states that as long as a soil sample is saturated, the e
and
relationships are identical. Once the sample starts to be desiccated,
is reduced with further desaturation following a virgin desiccation line with a steeper slope (curve III in Fig. 2). The slope of the e/
relationship (curve I in Fig. 2) will remain constant as long as the shrinkage limit has not been reached. Beyond this point, the slope will reduce to zero.
With the above given hypotheses, the similarity of volume reduction and change of water content due to hydraulic stress
can be referred to volume change due to mechanical stress
. Additionally, it has been described (Katou et al., 1987; Bruand and Cousin, 1995) that mechanical stress will first decrease the size of less stable coarse pores, which is comparable with draining coarse pores of a water-saturated soil first by increasing hydraulic stress. Furthermore, changes of the pore size distribution by mechanical stresses can be compared with the change of the pore size distribution by tensile stresses, although different in magnitude (see Eq. [1]). Combining these concepts of describing volume change by hydraulic and mechanical stresses provides a basis to model void ratio using an hydraulic model, which has been adapted to de/d
and de/d
other than d
/de.
As a model, the van Genuchten-equation (van Genuchten, 1980) for determining of the water retention curve was chosen. The following expressions and parameters are used for different void ratio and moisture ratio relationships:
vs. matrix potential
(water retention curve)
![]() | [2] |
(shrinkage-strain relationship)
![]() | [3] |
(stressstrain relationship)
![]() | [4] |
The parameters
s and es describe moisture ratio at water-saturated conditions and void ratio before stress application, respectively. The parameter
r (residual moisture ratio) is dependent on the texture of the material, but is often defined as
r = 0. The minimum (residual) void ratio er is dependent on the maximum packing density (i.e., minimum void ratio) of the material and will be generally around er = 0.27. The van Genuchten parameters
, n, and m have specific values (indicated by indices) depending on being related to void ratio or moisture ratio and mechanical stress
or hydraulic stress
.
The advantage of this hypothesis is that it enables the definition of volume change by a simple and continuous function. Also, volume change due to external stresses can be expressed by the same model as volume change due to hydraulic stresses. In the case of shrinkage or swelling by internal stresses, the stress state parameter
and the functional relationship with moisture ratio and void ratio are the same.
| Derivation of Soil Mechanical Properties |
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The preconsolidation stress is determined either graphically or statistically. The graphic determination after Casagrande (1936) defines this stress by use of the point of maximum curvature of the semilogarithmic stressstrain relationship. The preconsolidation stress is the point of intersection of two lines. The first line is the bisector line of the angle made by a horizontal and tangent line drawn at the point of maximum. The second line is the extended straight line of the virgin compression curve in direction to smaller stresses (Fig. 3) . Although this method is commonly used, the determination of the point of maximum curvature and the decision of which range of stresses determine the virgin compression line are often subjective.
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With use of a continuous function, the soil mechanical parameters can be determined purely mathematically. On the basis of this hydraulic model of van Genuchten, the hydraulic/mechanical stressstrain relationship can be modeled with the above given boundary values. Volume change should always be defined by void ratio rather than relative strain. It simplifies calculations because residual void ratio can be defined by a constant value as explained above, whereas when using strain a specific bulk density has to be related to each soil and hence a specific minimum strain estimated. As the derived parameters of the van Genuchten curve respond very sensitively to the shape of the curve, it is quite important to model with a reliable residual pore volume (void ratio).
The mechanical parameter preconsolidation stress can be determined using the second and third derivation of this function. The virgin compression line is determined by the tangent through the inflection point (zero-point of the 2nd derivation) of this function. The point of maximum curvature (1st zero-point of the 3rd derivation) is the starting point for the calculation of the bisector line of the angle made by a horizontal and a tangent line of the stressstrain relationship. When the zero-point of the 2nd and 3rd derivation is known, the point of intersection of the bisector and the extended straight line of the virgin compression curve can be calculated easily using a spread sheet. In the following, the derivation of the van Genuchten equation is described in detail.
To simplify notations, the van Genuchten equation (see Eq. [2], [3], and [4]) is rewritten in the following uniform way:
![]() | [5] |
s and
r being the water content at saturation and residual water content, respectively, and
, n, and m being the van Genuchten parameters. The variable h represents the matric water potential
or mechanical stress
. To take account for the logarithmic stress, f(h) is replaced by the following function:
![]() | [6] |
Furthermore, the notation k: = k(x): =
10x will be used. With use of k'(x) = k(x)ln(10) and the chain rule, the first derivative g'(x) of g(x) can be calculated as follows:
![]() | [7] |
s
r) ln(10). With the addition of the product rule, the second derivative g''(x) and third derivative g'''(x) of g(x) can be calculated as follows:
![]() | [8] |
![]() | [9] |
![]() | [10] |
![]() | [11] |
n(10x)n =
nhn. The first zero of this quadratic polynomial is
![]() | [12] |
Thus, the maximum curvature of the function g is at
![]() | [13] |
The preconsolidation stress
p = 10xp can be calculated by equating the regression line through the inflection point with the bisecting regression line between the tangent at the point of maximum curvature and horizontal line (its slope is one half of the slope of the tangent regression line):
![]() | [14] |
![]() | [15] |
![]() | [16] |
![]() | [17] |
Additional to preconsolidation stress, the Youngs modulus E is also an important mechanical parameter. It describes the elastic behavior of a material and is defined by
![]() | [18] |
The strain can be replaced by the void ratio. According to this definition, the Youngs modulus describes the equivalent property mechanically as the pore size distribution (
/
) hydrologically.
Table 1 summarizes the hydraulic and mechanical parameters and relationships which are treated equivalently or are related to each other.
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| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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The volume change with stress was modeled using the van Genuchten equation. The parameters
and n of this model were calculated by RETC (U.S. Salinity Laboratory, 1999). The parameter m was fixed using m = 1 1/n. As the unit for mechanical stress is kilopascal, the
-value of the van Genuchten equation of the presented calculations has the unit 1/kPa.
| RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
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The triaxial test was performed on homogenized material under isotropic conditions (Fig. 4c). This kind of compaction reduces the volume to a lesser extent. The steepness of the curve is lower and the calculated preconsolidation stress higher.
The test on the structured glacial till (Fig. 4c) was performed at water conditions drier than field capacity. The sample originated from a site which was exposed to high stresses resulting from heavy agricultural machinery. The preconsolidation stress as a result of both the higher mechanical and hydraulic stresses, has to be classified as very high.
The influence of both the mechanical compaction as well as the hydraulic impact of shrinkage can be observed in the samples Kaolin K2 and Kaolin K3 (Fig. 5; data taken from Toll, 1995, after Biarez et al., 1988). The sample Kaolin K2 was exposed to about 50% of the mechanical stress of Kaolin K3 (55 kPa). Both samples were then water saturated and dried. The preshrinkage stress which can be calculated from the shrinkage characteristic is higher than the mechanical preconsolidation stress. The shrinkage capacity of the kaolinitic substrate exceeds the mechanical compressing stresses when the material is dried and therefore increases the preconsolidation/shrinkage stress to higher values. Nevertheless, a memory effect can be recognized as the sample Kaolin K3 with higher mechanical preconsolidation stress, shows as well higher preshrinkage stresses after drying.
The difference in the pretreatment is also identifiable in the elastic properties. The course of the Youngs modulus shows a higher width at lower water suctions for the substrate Kaolin K2 (Fig. 5).
To value the mathematical method of deriving mechanical parameters from a functional relationship, the herewith calculated preconsolidation stresses are compared with the commonly used graphic method (Casagrande) and statistical method (Dias Junior and Pierce, 1995). The preconsolidation stress according to the Casagrande method was determined by a manual line of best fit. The statistical method consists of a four-parameter fit. As described earlier, two regression lines are calculated using an increasing number of measured data for the first regression line and a equivalently decreasing number of observed data for the second regression line. The regressions with the highest statistical difference were used to calculate the preconsolidation stress.
The preconsolidation stress of the three methods are summarized in Table 4. The results of the methods differ partly to a great extent. The variation between the physical and mathematical method is higher with greater heterogeneity of the data set; that is, the less a true line could be drawn through the points (e.g., clay-I, clay-II). The statistical method has a high deviation when the slopes of the recompression line and the virgin compression line are similar as a cause of either a small number of points (e.g., clay-II, clay-III) or a shallow stressstrain relationship in case of mechanical stress application (glacial till, clay-IV-triax) or reduced volume change in case of shrinkage (Kaolin K2, Kaolin K3).
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The mathematical method allows a continual fit of the stressstrain relationship including the boundary conditions initial and residual void ratio and improves the accuracy of the derived preconsolidation stress (according to the Casagrande method).
The shape of the stressstrain relationship modeled with the van Genuchten equation is based on the parameters
and n. A sensitivity analysis shows that generally the preconsolidation stress is mainly influenced by the
-value of the van Genuchten equation. For n values > 1.6, the influence of n on the preconsolidation stress is negligible (Fig. 6)
. Only for stressstrain relationships with a small change in void ratio with increasing mechanical or hydraulic stress, that is, a small steepness of the van Genuchten equation, will n values have an influence on the value of the preconsolidation stress. As the shape of the curve has a sensitive influence on the calculated value of the preconsolidation stress, void ratio should be preferably used instead of, for example, an absolute or relative strain value.
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-value represents the air-entry value, which may be defined as the elastic property of the pore system in respect to emptying of water filled pores (Hillel, 1998). Hence, for high n values in very deformable substrates, the preconsolidation stress is equivalent to the air entry-value. The results of the modeling procedure show that it is possible to predict stressstrain relationships by a hydraulic function (van Genuchten-equation) and to derive mechanical parameters like preconsolidation stress and Youngs modulus from derivatives of that equation.
| CONCLUSION |
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to hydraulic stress
. This is of great advantage when the total stress state of soils has to be defined. | APPENDIX |
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' effective stress
total stress
water potential
ua pore air pressure
uw pore water pressure = water suction [ =
(matric water potential)]
parameter related to the degree of saturation of the soil (0
1)
water content
s water content at saturation
r residual water content
moisture ratio
r residual moisture ratio
s moisture ratio at saturation
e void ratio
er residual (minimum) void ratio (e = 0.27)
es maximum void ratio
van Genuchten parameter (subscripts relate to the dependent variables e,
and
,
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n van Genuchten parameter (subscripts relate to the dependent variables e,
and
,
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m van Genuchten parameter (subscripts relate to the dependent variables e,
and
,
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h variable representing
or
E Youngs modulus
strain
p preconsolidation stress
s preshrinkage stress
Received for publication September 19, 2002.
| REFERENCES |
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