TECHNICAL EXPERIMENT IN GEOTECHNICAL

ENGINEERING

STUDY OF THE EFFECT OF WATER EXISTENCE ON SOIL

SHEAR STRENGTH

RESEARCHER : Ahmed Salah Kamel Mohamed

COORDINATOR : Anton Chirica

BUCUREŞTI 2021
 UNIVERSITATEA TEHNICĂ DE CONSTRUCŢII
BUCUREŞTI

Contents
introduction............................................................................................................................................................. 3
Soil shearing strength ............................................................................................................................................. 3
Soil shear box test ................................................................................................................................................... 3
1. soil shear box test setup. ............................................................................................................................ 3
2. Preparation and procedure of soil shear test. ............................................................................................. 4
soil tests performed in geotechnical labs in cairo university. ................................................................................. 5
volumetric strains and the normal stresses.............................................................................................................. 5
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................................. 6
Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
INTRODUCTION
The shear strength of soil is one of the key elements that geotechnical engineers take into consideration,
shearing resistance of the soil keeps our structures standing still and safe, soil in nature is a non-
homogenous element, as much is a well graded soil, it’s shearing resistance raise up, the existence of
the water in the soil samples increases the soil shearing strength.
SOIL SHEARING STRENGTH
Soil shear resistance can be estimated through an experimental procedures in the geotechnical labs,
cohesion and angle of internal frictions are the two main factors of judging the soil.
Cohesion of a soil sample happens usually in a muddy or clayey soil, the clayey soil has a very thin soil
particles, these soil particles strongly keeps water blobs, these water blobs surface tension keeps the
soil particles attached to each other, until the water blobs are expelled using pressure or any sort of load,
Fig. 1 shows the sand particles and water blobs.

Fig. 1 – soil particles cohesion due to water blobs surface tension

SOIL SHEAR BOX TEST

Soil shear box test is used to assess the soil shearing resistance parameters in the lab by deriving the
graphs between the normal and the shearing stresses on a soil sample.
1. SOIL SHEAR BOX TEST SETUP.
Shear box device is consisting of two separate square molds of soil of dimension of 60mm x 60mm and
50mm deep so that the soil sample size is 60x60x50mm3. Porous stones of 6mm thick per each. Gauge
to measure the shearing force with accuracy of 0.002mm. micrometer dial gauge to measure the
horizontal and the vertical displacements during the shear action. Fig. 2, and Fig. 3 show the setup of
the test.
 Fig. 2 – shear test device setup

Fig. 3 – shear test diagram

2. PREPARATION AND PROCEDURE OF SOIL SHEAR TEST.

Soil sample must be for undisturbed soil, should be large enough to provide at least three identical
specimens of 60x60x50mm3, soil specimen preparation must be at the same level of moisture and the
moisture loss is negligible, which can be achieved by saving the soil samples in wax wraps.
By trimming the soil sample as the volume mentioned above, put the soil sample inside the models
taking into consideration to avoid any type of disturbance to the natural soil surface or any pre-applied
loads on the sample.
Insert the upper loading block in place. place the box in its proper position on the shearing machine.
Mount the loading yoke on the steel loading device. Hang 10 kg as normal load on the soil sample as a
start. Apply the shearing force until the soil fails.
Repeat the previous steps for the other samples under increasing the normal loads from 20 to 30 to 40
kg. plot the failure envelop between the normal stress in x axis and the shear stress in y axis in the same
scale. The resulted line slope reads the angle of the internal friction while the interception of the line
with y axis represents the cohesion of the sample.
SOIL TESTS PERFORMED IN GEOTECHNICAL LABS IN CAIRO UNIVERSITY.
Two different soil sample have been collected to perform this test, the first sample brought from Giza
city to a site along side the Nile river, the soil was with a moisture content of 70%. The second soil
sample was brought from the same city but from a site that is distant from the Nile river, it had moisture
content of 10%.
The same soil testing procedures have been held and done to each type of soil sample, for each soil
sample the normal loads applied per each was 10kg, 20 kg, 30 kg, and 40 kg. Fig. 4 shows the difference
in the shear parameters for the soil samples that differ in moisture content.

Shear Box test

60

50
Shear stress τ, kN

40
C₁ = 12 kN Φ₁= 34.2157⁰
70% Moist. Sample
30
70% Moist. Sample Fitting

20 10% Moist. Sample

10% Moist. Sample Fitting
10
C₂ = 1 kN Φ₂= 47.2026⁰

0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Normal stress σ, kN

Fig. 4 – 70% and 10% moist soil samples shear parameters compression

VOLUMETRIC STRAINS AND THE NORMAL STRESSES.

Throughout the test, the gauge of strains has measured all the volumetric strains happened to the soil
samples, it was noticeable that the soil with higher moisture content had has higher hardening ratios
than the less moist soil, that proves that the moisture content and the surface tension of water
participate aggressively of soil shear resistance. Fig. 5 shows the differences between the hardening
effect between the moist and the less moist soil.
 Volumetric Strains VS. Normal Stresses
0.04 Critical State

0.035

Volumetric Strains 0.03

0.025

0.02
70% Moist sample
0.015 10% Moist sample

0.01

0.005

0
0 20 40 60
Normal Stress σ, kN

Fig. 5 – Volumetric strains VS Normal stresses

CONCLUSION
Water content and moisture has a great impact on the soil shearing resistance. Special care should be
taken into consideration about the water content in the soil sample, since the water content might
change, it will lead to catastrophic results.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Advanced soil mechanics by Das, Braja M.

- Principles of Soil Dynamics by Braja M. Das, G.V. Ramana

- Braja M. Das - Principles of Foundation Engineering, SI Edition-Cengage Learning Emea (2010)

- Braja M. DAS - Instructor's solutions manual to accompany Principles of geotechnical engineering,

sixth edition

- Braja M. Das - Shallow Foundations_ Bearing Capacity and Settlement-CRC Press (2009)

- Braja M. Das - Principles of Geotechnical Engineering-CL-Engineering (2009)

- Sam Helwany - Applied soil mechanics_ with ABAQUS applications-Wiley (2007)