Title: Determination of Subgrade Soil Field Moisture Conditions Using Total Soil Suction
Abstract: This paper describes an approach of determining the wet-side moisture condition of subgrade soil based on soil suction. In the past, subgrade materials were tested under maximum dry unit weight with a fully saturated condition in order to simulate the worst scenario in the field. But it may not be a reasonable condition since subgrade soil could only reach 100% saturation under submerged conditions. Based on the understanding of soil's physico-chemical phenomena and development of new techniques of measuring soil suction, this new approach was developed for determining a more reasonable wet-side condition of subgrade soils. In this paper, the WP4 potentiameter was used to measure soil suction at different moisture contents between optimum moisture content and 100% saturation. Based on these results, soil water characteristic curves for different soils were developed. Based on these curves, the moisture content while soils reached the field capacity levels were used as wet-side condition for further tests. For most soils tested using this approach, the wet-side moisture contents were about 1 to 3 percent higher than their optimum moisture contents; less than the moisture content at 100% saturation.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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