Profiles of Steady-State Suction Stress in Unsaturated Soils

Abstract

Application of the effective stress principle in unsaturated geotechnical engineering problems often requires explicit knowledge of the stress acting on the soil skeleton due to suction pore water pressure. This stress is defined herein as the suction stress. A theoretical formulation of suction stress profiles, based on the soil water characteristics curve, the soil permeability characteristic curve, and previous shear strength experimental verification, is developed. The theory provides a general quantitative way to calculate vertical suction stress profiles in various unsaturated soils under steady flow rate in the form of infiltration or evaporation.