Shear strength (soil)


Shear strength is a term used in soil mechanics to describe the magnitude of the shear stress that a soil can sustain. The shear resistance of soil is a result of friction and interlocking of particles, and possibly cementation or bonding at particle contacts. Due to interlocking, particulate material may expand or contract in volume as it is subject to shear strains. If soil expands its volume, the density of particles will decrease and the strength will decrease; in this case, the peak strength would be followed by a reduction of shear stress. The stress-strain relationship levels off when the material stops expanding or contracting, and when interparticle bonds are broken. The theoretical state at which the shear stress and density remain constant while the shear strain increases may be called the critical state, steady state, or residual strength.
The volume change behavior and interparticle friction depend on the density of the particles, the intergranular contact forces, and to a somewhat lesser extent, other factors such as the rate of shearing and the direction of the shear stress. The average normal intergranular contact force per unit area is called the effective stress.
If water is not allowed to flow in or out of the soil, the stress path is called an undrained stress path. During undrained shear, if the particles are surrounded by a nearly incompressible fluid such as water, then the density of the particles cannot change without drainage, but the water pressure and effective stress will change. On the other hand, if the fluids are allowed to freely drain out of the pores, then the pore pressures will remain constant and the test path is called a drained stress path. The soil is free to dilate or contract during shear if the soil is drained. In reality, soil is partially drained, somewhere between the perfectly undrained and drained idealized conditions.
The shear strength of soil depends on the effective stress, the drainage conditions, the density of the particles, the rate of strain, and the direction of the strain.
For undrained, constant volume shearing, the Tresca theory may be used to predict the shear strength, but for drained conditions, the Mohr–Coulomb theory may be used.
Two important theories of soil shear are the critical state theory and the [|steady state theory]. There are key differences between the critical state condition and the steady state condition and the resulting theory corresponding to each of these conditions.

Factors controlling shear strength of soils

The stress-strain relationship of soils, and therefore the shearing strength, is affected by:
  1. soil composition : mineralogy, grain size and grain size distribution, shape of particles, pore fluid type and content, ions on grain and in pore fluid.
  2. state : Defined by the initial void ratio, effective normal stress and shear stress. State can be described by terms such as: loose, dense, overconsolidated, normally consolidated, stiff, soft, contractive, dilative, etc.
  3. structure: Refers to the arrangement of particles within the soil mass; the manner the particles are packed or distributed. Features such as layers, joints, fissures, slickensides, voids, pockets, cementation, etc., are part of the structure. Structure of soils is described by terms such as: undisturbed, disturbed, remolded, compacted, cemented; flocculent, honey-combed, single-grained; flocculated, deflocculated; stratified, layered, laminated; isotropic and anisotropic.
  4. Loading conditions: Effective stress path, i.e., drained, and undrained; and type of loading, i.e., magnitude, rate, and time history.
  5. Confining Stress also effects the shear strength of the soil as more deviator stress is required for failure in the case of soil under high confining pressure.

    Undrained strength

This term describes a type of shear strength in soil mechanics as distinct from drained strength.
Conceptually, there is no such thing as the undrained strength of a soil. It depends on a number of factors, the main ones being:
Undrained strength is typically defined by Tresca theory, based on Mohr's circle as:
σ1 - σ3 = 2 Su
Where:
σ1 is the major principal stress
σ3 is the minor principal stress
is the shear strength /2
hence, = Su, the undrained strength.
It is commonly adopted in limit equilibrium analyses where the rate of loading is very much greater than the rate at which pore water pressures, that are generated due to the action of shearing the soil, may dissipate. An example of this is rapid loading of sands during an earthquake, or the failure of a clay slope during heavy rain, and applies to most failures that occur during construction.
As an implication of undrained condition, no elastic volumetric strains occur, and thus Poisson's ratio is assumed to remain 0.5 throughout shearing. The Tresca soil model also assumes no plastic volumetric strains occur. This is of significance in more advanced analyses such as in finite element analysis. In these advanced analysis methods, soil models other than Tresca may be used to model the undrained condition including Mohr-Coulomb and critical state soil models such as the modified Cam-clay model, provided Poisson's ratio is maintained at 0.5.
One relationship used extensively by practicing engineers is the empirical observation that the ratio of the undrained shear strength c to the original consolidation stress p' is approximately a constant for a given Over Consolidation Ratio. This relationship was first formalized by and who also extended it to show that stress-strain characteristics of remolded clays could also be normalized with respect to the original consolidation stress. The constant c/p relationship can also be derived from theory for both critical-state and steady-state soil mechanics. This fundamental, normalization property of the stress-strain curves is found in many clays, and was refined into the empirical SHANSEP method..

Drained shear strength

The drained shear strength is the shear strength of the soil when pore fluid pressures, generated during the course of shearing the soil, are able to dissipate during shearing. It also applies where no pore water exists in the soil and hence pore fluid pressures are negligible. It is commonly approximated using the Mohr-Coulomb equation. combined it with the principle of effective stress.
In terms of effective stresses, the shear strength is often approximated by:
= σ' tan + c
Where σ' = , is defined as the effective stress. σ is the total stress applied normal to the shear plane, and u is the pore water pressure acting on the same plane.
φ = the effective stress friction angle, or the 'angle of internal friction' after Coulomb friction. The coefficient of friction is equal to tan. Different values of friction angle can be defined, including the peak friction angle, φ'p, the critical state friction angle, φ'cv, or residual friction angle, φ'r.
c' = is called cohesion, however, it usually arises as a consequence of forcing a straight line to fit through measured values of even though the data actually falls on a curve. The intercept of the straight line on the shear stress axis is called the cohesion. It is well known that the resulting intercept depends on the range of stresses considered: it is not a fundamental soil property. The curvature of the failure envelope occurs because the dilatancy of closely packed soil particles depends on confining pressure.

Critical state theory

A more advanced understanding of the behaviour of soil undergoing shearing lead to the development of the critical state theory of soil mechanics. In critical state soil mechanics, a distinct shear strength is identified where the soil undergoing shear does so at a constant volume, also called the 'critical state'. Thus there are three commonly identified shear strengths for a soil undergoing shear:
The peak strength may occur before or at critical state, depending on the initial state of the soil particles being sheared:
The constant volume shear strength is said to be extrinsic to the soil, and independent of the initial density or packing arrangement of the soil grains. In this state the grains being sheared are said to be 'tumbling' over one another, with no significant granular interlock or sliding plane development affecting the resistance to shearing. At this point, no inherited fabric or bonding of the soil grains affects the soil strength.
The residual strength occurs for some soils where the shape of the particles that make up the soil become aligned during shearing, resulting in reduced resistance to continued shearing. This is particularly true for most clays that comprise plate-like minerals, but is also observed in some granular soils with more elongate shaped grains. Clays that do not have plate-like minerals do not tend to exhibit residual strengths.
Use in practice: If one is to adopt critical state theory and take c' = 0; p may be used, provided the level of anticipated strains are taken into account, and the effects of potential rupture or strain softening to critical state strengths are considered. For large strain deformation, the potential to form slickensided surface with a φ'r should be considered.
The Critical State occurs at the quasi-static strain rate. It does not allow for differences in shear strength based on different strain rates. Also at the critical state, there is no particle alignment or specific soil structure.
Almost as soon as it was first introduced, the critical state concept has been subject to much criticism--chiefly its inability to match readily available test data from testing a wide variety of soils. This is primarily due to the theories inability to account for particle structure. A major consequence of this is its inability to model strain-softening post peak commonly observed in contractive soils that have anisotropic grain shapes/properties. Further, an assumption commonly made to make the model mathematically tractable is that shear stress cannot cause volumetric strain nor volumetric stress cause shear strain. Since this is not the case in reality, it is an additional cause of the poor matches to readily available empirical test data. Additionally, critical state elasto-plastic models assume that elastic strains drives volumetric changes. Since this too is not the case in real soils, this assumption results in poor fits to volume and pore pressure change data.

Steady state (dynamical systems based soil shear)

A refinement of the critical state concept is the steady state concept.
The steady state strength is defined as the shear strength of the soil when it is at the steady state condition. The steady state condition is defined as "that state in which the mass is continuously deforming at constant volume, constant normal effective stress, constant shear stress, and constant velocity." , then an Associate Professor of the Soil Mechanics Department of Harvard University, built off a hypothesis that Arthur Casagrande was formulating towards the end of his career. Steady state based soil mechanics is sometimes called "Harvard soil mechanics". The steady state condition is not the same as the "critical state" condition.
The steady state occurs only after all particle breakage if any is complete and all the particles are oriented in a statistically steady state condition and so that the shear stress needed to continue deformation at a constant velocity of deformation does not change. It applies to both the drained and the undrained case.
The steady state has a slightly different value depending on the strain rate at which it is measured. Thus the steady state shear strength at the quasi-static strain rate would seem to correspond to the critical state shear strength. However, there is an additional difference between the two states. This is that at the steady state condition the grains position themselves in the steady state structure, whereas no such structure occurs for the critical state. In the case of shearing to large strains for soils with elongated particles, this steady state structure is one where the grains are oriented in the direction of shear. In the case where the particles are strongly aligned in the direction of shear, the steady state corresponds to the "residual condition."
Three common misconceptions regarding the steady state are that a) it is the same as the critical state that it applies only to the undrained case that it does not apply to sands. A primer on the Steady State theory can be found in a report by Poulos. Its use in earthquake engineering is described in detail in another publication by Poulos.
The difference between the steady state and the critical state is not merely one of semantics as is sometimes thought, and it is incorrect to use the two terms/concepts interchangeably. The additional requirements of the strict definition of the steady state over and above the critical state viz. a constant deformation velocity and statistically constant structure, places the steady state condition within the framework of dynamical systems theory. This strict definition of the steady state was used to describe soil shear as a dynamical system. Dynamical systems are ubiquitous in nature and mathematicians have extensively studied such systems. The underlying basis of the soil shear dynamical system is simple friction.