Showing papers by "Delwyn G. Fredlund published in 1987"

Soil mechanics principles for highway engineering in arid regions

Abstract: Highway construction is commonly required in arid regions. Soils in these regions are generally unsaturated and are characterized by highly negative pore-water pressures. An extension of saturated soil mechanics principles is required to fully understand their behavior and to perform the necessary analyses for engineering purposes. In recent years there has been a rapid increase in understanding of the behavior of unsaturated soils. Conventional equations for shear strength, volume change, and seepage have been extended to embrace unsaturated soils. Presented in this paper is a summary of unsaturated soil principles and theories particularly relevant to highway design in arid regions. The application of these theories to highway engineering is outlined. In addition, several techniques commonly used to measure soil suction or negative pore-water pressure are discussed. The measurement of soil suction is central to applying unsaturated soil theories.