A framework alternative to that of classical slope stability analysis is developed, wherein the soil mass is treated as a continuum and in-situ soil stresses and strengths are computed accurately using inelastic "nite element methods with general constitutive models. Within this framework, two alternative methods of stability analysis are presented. In the "rst, the strength characteristics of ...

Varved clays, which consist of alternating layers of silt and clay, are common in glaciated regions of North America and Northern Europe. This layering results in several unique engineering properties making varved clays a challenging soil for engineering design. Varved clays have hydraulic conductivity and undrained shear strength anisotropy that far exceeds that of most other soils. The stren...

Beginning of the twentieth century, population growth, urbanization and industrialization has led to depletion of rapidly building areas. Accordingly, each passing day, the opening of the new construction sites has become mandatory. Among these newly opened areas, geotechnical aspects of construction from time to time in areas not suitable for construction and deployment was seen to improve the...

One objective of precision agriculture is to provide accurate information about soil and crop properties to optimize the management of agricultural inputs to meet site-specific needs. This paper describes the development of a sensor equipped with RTK-GPS technology that continuously and efficiently measures soil cutting resistance at various depths while traversing the field. Laboratory and pre...

Naturally occurred soil deposits inherit heterogeneity and anisotropy in their strength properties. The main purpose of this paper is to model the soil stratum with anisotropy consideration and spatially varying undrained shear strength by using random field theory coupled with finite difference numerical analysis to evaluate their effect on the bearing capacity of the shallow foundations. In t...

 In pavement design, the CBR and direct shear tests are two very common laboratory investigations for predicting the strength of a subgrade layer. The relationship between the CBR and water content has been commonly presented in analyses, with the result of the direct shear being expressed from the aspect of effective cohesion and the internal friction angle. Even though most natural soil is in...

The mechanical behavior of saturated soil is mainly governed by the interaction between the soil skeleton and the pore fluid, and this interaction may lead to significant loss of strength known as liquefaction under seismic loading conditions. The main objective of this paper is to implement a cyclic constitutive model based on fuzzy set plasticity theory, which is capable of modeling soil dila...

reported resistance values of 2,8 to 3,2 MPa for tillage pans in A long term trial to study the sustainability of a vertisol under continuous spgarcane monocropping was commenced in 1939 at the Experiment Station of the South African Sugar Association. The design of the trial consists of four replications of two main plots, each split into four sub-plots. The treatments comprise various combina...

Plant-soil feedbacks have been implicated in several successful plant invasions. However, simple identification of a feedback alone may not be enough to establish feedbacks as a mechanism behind plant invasion. I suggest that the relationship between soil community density and plant growth is an important unknown that strongly influences the impact of plant-soil feedbacks. I developed a mathema...