ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The paper presents results from shearbox tests on a reconstituted unsaturated clayey silt. Tests were carried out using a shearbox with the facility to monitor suctions using high-suction Trento tensiometers. Samples were initially normally consolidated at vertical stress of 100 or 300 kPa and were subsequently air dried. These two consolidation pressures produced unsaturated samples having different void ratio and this made it possible to investigate the influence of void ratio on water retention characteristics and shear strength behaviour. Tests were interpreted in the light of microscopic and macroscopic models recently presented in the literature to account for hydro-mechanical coupling in unsaturated soils.
