The foregoing case histories are examples of soil conditions that are regularly encountered in the Middle East. The adoption of the plate test using the inundation techniques described in this paper has proven invaluable in establishing the susceptibility of arid soils to collapse or swelling. Alternative procedures using laboratory consolidation tests are more difficult to interpret and can give misleading results, due to sample disturbance and the lateral restraint imposed by the oedometer cell. The use of pure water, rather than ground water, in the oedometer can give rise to the break down of chemical bonding within the soil mass. With the prevalence of moisture susceptible soils in arid regions construction on these deposits may often be required. The guidelines presented by the author in this paper are put forward as a means to enable this to occur, whilst minimising the risk of long term structural distress.
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