ON PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION AND EFFECTIVE STRESS IN UNSATURATED SOILS

Abstract
A theory is presented for the distribution of load pressures over the different phases in an unsaturated soil. It provides differential and integral relations between the equilibrium liquid pressure, the equilibrium solid pressure and the load pressure. Mechanical and thermodynamic models are presented by which the effective stress in unsaturated soils is defined. The value of the effective stress is then calculated for a certain state of a clay soil.