Advanced Unsaturated Soil Mechanics

This new edition covers recent suction history on small strain stiffness, cyclic thermal effects on soil behaviour, and wall deflection in deep excavations; along with topics not in other books, case studies including the South-to-North Water Transfer Project in China, and the design of wall deflection in deep excavation problems.

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Unsaturated soil is a three-phase material that is ubiquitous on the Earth’s surface and exhibits complex behaviour, which becomes more complex in response to the Earth’s changing climate and increasing engineering activities. This is because the former affects its moisture and temperature conditions significantly and the latter governs its stress state and suction condition. This book is designed to meet the increasing challenges of climate change and engineering activities by covering the mechanics and engineering of unsaturated soil in a logical manner. It comprises four major parts:



Water retention and flow characteristics
Shear strength and stiffness at various temperatures
State-dependent elasto-plastic constitutive modelling
Field monitoring and engineering applications

This second edition uniquely covers fundamental topics on unsaturated soil that are not covered in other similar books, including:



the state- dependency of soil- water retention behaviour and water permeability functions, such as dependence on engineering activities
small strain stiffness considering the influence of wetting- drying cycles and recent suction history, such as that due to climate change
suction effects on dilatancy and peak shear strength
cyclic thermal effects on soil behaviour
state- dependent elastoplastic constitutive modelling of monotonic and cyclic behaviour
engineering applications such as the South-to-North Water Transfer Project; an earthen landfill cover system devoid of geomembrane in the Xiaping landfill, Shenzhen; and a 15-m-deep multi- propped excavation in Tianjin, China