Assessment on the effect of fine content and moisture content towards shear strength

Abstract

The shear strength τ, shear modulus G, friction angle ∅, and cohesion c are remarkable design parameters in the geotechnical and civil projects. These design parameters were affected by several factors. In this paper, the fine content and moisture content factors were evaluated. Numerous compacted sand-kaolin samples were test through the direct shear box test (by using shear rate equals to 1 mm/min, the samples dimension equals to 100 × 100 mm) to assess the effect of these factors. The results show interface between both effects of fine content and moisture content towards the shear strength parameters. According to the results; (1) there is no significant effect on shear strength parameters at low portions of fine content FC and moisture content w, (2) at higher portion of FC and w, bot FC and w show different relationships with shear strength parameters, (3) both relative high shear rate and low applied stress lead to present high value of friction angle (4) compact the soil mixtures with same compaction effort and different fine and moisture content lead to change the soil structure and void ratio thus produce regressive relationship between the friction angle toward density.