Application areas

Many traditional geotechnical engineering problems can be better understood in the framework of unsaturated soil mechanics. Mechanical compaction is a classical application of unsaturated soil mechanics in the geotechnical practice which has been used to improve the mechanical and hydraulic properties of soils in the earthen embankments. Similarly, the problems due to the behavior of expansive and collapsing soils can be better addressed with the knowledge of state variables and material constants of the governing phenomena for the mitigation of soil hazards. Rainfall induced landslides is another important area where the principles of unsaturated soil mechanics can be well appreciated. Many fundamental aspects of unsaturated soil mechanics and some applications of unsaturated soil mechanics in geotechnical practice will be addressed in this lecture series.

Organization of the lectures

The organization of the lectures in the present lecture series is presented below:

•   Introduction and applications

•  Material variables and influencing factors

•  Characterization of unsaturated soils

•  Measurement of soil suction

•  Soil hydraulic characteristics

•  Measuring and modeling hydraulic characteristics

•  Engineering behavior of unsaturated soils

•  Flow through unsaturated soils

•  Steady and transient flows

•  Experimentation

•  Capillarity and capillary barriers

•  Shear strength

•  Modified M-C criterion

•  Volume change behavior

Flow and stress phenomena have been given more importance in this course. The settlement or volume change phenomena are discussed only briefly due to lack of time.