The suction,yield and strength characteristics of unsaturated intact loess based on true tri-axial tests

Abstract

To simulate the failure of loess under undrained condition in the actual engineering,a series of isotropic consolidation and shear tests with different intermediate principal stress ratio b under constant water content were performed on intact loess with various initial suctions using the true tri-axial apparatus for unsaturated soil. The relationship between the saturations and initial suctions,the characteristics of yield,suction and strength of unsaturated intact loess were studied. The results show that the initial suctions and the suctions after the isotropic consolidation decrease with the increase of saturations. The suctions increase with the increase of the intermediate principal stress ratio b at the true triaxial shear failure. The net mean yield stress increase with the increase of the initial suction. The yield suction is a constant,but not always equal to the maximum suction that the soil specimen experienced in the history. The strength of soil increase with the increase of the net confining pressure,initial suction and the intermediate principal stress ratio b.