ENGINEERING DESIGN PROTOCOLS FOR UNSATURATED SOILS

摘要

Guidance and recommendations need to be provided to engineers who desire to use unsaturated soil mechanics in engineering practice. Guidance should come in the form of engineering protocols that define acceptable, high-standard engineering practice. Practicing engineers can then have greater confidence in applying unsaturated soil mechanics. Engineering protocols for unsaturated soil mechanics can be divided into "preliminary design" situations and "final design" situations. Both design levels involve the use of a variety of estimation procedures that have been proposed for various classes of constitutive behavior. This paper attempts to provide guidance and recommendations with regard to the estimation procedures that are most appropriate for engineering practice. Many of the initial estimation procedures were initiated in agriculture-related disciplines but have required later refinement for usage in engineering. Guidance and recommendations are provided regarding the use of Soil-Water Characteristic Curves, (SWCC), and consequently to the generation of unsaturated soil property functions, (USPF).