23/05/1437

Dr. Asmaa Moddather

Soil Mechanics and Foundations
Faculty of Engineering Cairo University
Spring 2016
Dr. Asmaa Moddather Soil Improvement Spring 2016

Introduction

Many collapsible soils are mudflows or windblown

deposits often found in arid or semiarid climates such as

deserts.

A collapsible soil at natural water content may support a

given foundation load with negligible settlement, but when

water is added to this soil the volume can decrease
significantly and cause substantial settlement of the
foundation, even at relatively low applied stress or at the
overburden pressure.
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Introduction

The amount of settlement depends on the initial void ratio,

stress history of the soil, thickness of the collapsible soil

layer, and magnitude of the applied foundation pressure.

Collapsible soils exposed to perimeter watering of

vegetation around structures or leaking utility lines are

most likely to settle. Collapse may be initiated beneath the
ground surface and propagate toward the surface leading to
sudden and nonuniform settlement of overlying facilities.
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Introduction

Soil collapse forms a major hazard in many parts of the

world.

Human activities continue to increase in regions underlain

by collapsible soils, so that the hazards posed, and the

economic impacts are increasing.

In Egypt, recent extensions of urban communities towards

the desert have exposed the Egyptian engineer to relatively

new geotechnical challenges, among which is the
collapsible soils.

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Types and Formations

Collapsible soils: are metastable material, traditionally

defined as an unsaturated soil that experiences a radical

rearrangement of particles and significant reduction of
volume upon wetting with or without additional loading.

A wide range of soils fall into this category of material

including:

Windblown deposits

Water-laid deposits

Residual soils

Highly Saline Soils (Sabkha)

Man-placed fills made of sands.
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Types and Formations

1. Windblown deposits

Consist of materials transported by wind which form dunes
and loess.

The sweep of wind across large sand covered areas, whether

outwash plains, beaches, flood plains of broad rivers, or even

desert plains, moves the sand and silt sized particles but
leaves the gravel behind.

The sand grains are rolled over each other or bounced short

distances into the air and piled up to form dunes, whereas the
silt-sized grains are blown away.
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Types and Formations

1. Windblown deposits

The process of selection by wind sorts the sand into
assemblages of very uniform grain size.

Sand becomes finer with increasing distance from the source.

High porosity is encountered 50% 60%.

Low unit weight.

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Types and Formations

2. Water-laid deposits

Alluvial depositions produce high void ratio and low density
deposits, which are relatively strong in their natural state.

Cementation consists of dried clay binding the coarser
particles together and chemical precipitates, which may have
been added during deposition.

These deposits consist primarily of loose water deposited
sediments which form braided streams, alluvial fans, and
flood plain deposits.

The particle size of these deposits depends on the velocity
and rate of flow, and the distance from the source.
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Types and Formations

3. Residual Soils

Residual soils are the product of weathering, i.e., the
disintegration and mechanical alteration of the components
of parent rocks.

The particles of residual materials may vary in size from large
fragments to gravel, sand, silt, colloids, and in some cases,
organic matter.

The collapsible grain structure has developed as a result of
leaching out of soluble and colloidal material. This leaching
out of the soluble and fine material results in a high void ratio
and unstable structure.
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Types and Formations

4. Saline Soils (Sabkha)

Found in salt encrusted flat areas that are the result of
evaporation and sedimentary environment that dominated
the Arabian Peninsula and parts of the Middle East.

They are highly cemented by excessive salts present in both

the sediments and their shallow groundwater. Sabkha

sediments are common in the coastal and inland areas.

In general terms, Sabkha is loose to moderately dense

silt/sand material of varying size, composition, texture, and

origin.
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Types and Formations

4. Saline Soils (Sabkha)

Mud and clays are often interbedded with the sands and silts,
as seams or pockets, or may be found down below towards the
bottom.

At most times, and in open terrain, the hard surface of

Sabkha flats is sufficiently strong to take heavy traffic loads.

However, if the surface becomes wet due to occasional

rainfall, flash floods, or storm tides, the soluble salts which

provide the cementation in the crust, dissolve.
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Types and Formations

5. Man-Placed Fill of Sand

Most of the literature on collapsing soils is concerned with
naturally occurring collapsing soils that are essentially found
in arid or semi-arid climates, and cover a significant area of
the earths surface.

However, there is a wide range of artificially placed soils, such
as compacted soils that may also exhibit collapse behavior
upon wetting.

Evidences exist on cases where sand layers compacted dry of
optimum moisture content experienced collapse upon
wetting.
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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Geological references on Egypt do not seem to point out

clearly to the presence of classical collapsible deposits such

as loess.

However, there are geological information on some types of

deposits which, under certain situations, exhibit collapse

behavior. Among these are Aeolian deposits such as sand
dunes, fluvial deposits such as sand sheets, and high
salinity deposits such as sabkha.
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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

1.

Sand Dunes

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Sand Dunes

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Sand Dunes

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Qena and Aswan

Asyout and Suhag

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Giza

Menya and Beni-Suef

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Delta
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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Backfilled Quarries

Deep pits resulting from previous mining activities are some

times backfilled with random construction debris.
Buildings constructed in these areas can suffer from severe
structural damages when foundation material is wetted by
waters from irrigation systems and leakages from water
supply and wastewater networks.

Al-Darrassah, and Nasr City.

The thickness of fill layers in these areas exceeds 20 m.
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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Compacted earth fills

Earth fills that are formed by mere dumping of random or

selected material can experience collapse under load when
wetted. Backfilling between cast footings is sometimes not
given adequate attention in compaction.

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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Compacted earth fills

A large factory in Sadat City

The design depth of footings ranged between 4 and 10 m

below finished floor level.

Although clean sand was used as backfilling material, the

process was not accompanied with nearly any compaction.

Layers 2 to 3 m thick had been placed in one go, hoping
that the movement of trucks on the top surface of dumped
layers was sufficient to compact them.
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Collapsible Soils in Egypt

Compacted earth fills

The factory was completed and the production process

went on for a few weeks with the normal use of water for
cooling.

The slab-on grade experienced severe deformations, and

large cavities were observed under the slab at many

locations due to collapse of un-compacted fill under its
own weight.

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Assessment of Collapsible Soils

There are four steps that must be followed prior to arriving

at a final foundation design on a collapsing soil:

Identification - determine whether potentially collapsing
soils exist.
2. Classification- if collapsing soils exist, what degree of
attention needs to be paid to them.
3. Quantification - if soils are sufficiently prone to volume
change, a rational assessment of numerical values of
probable vertical movement should be made.
4. Evaluation of design alternatives.
1.

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Why Soil Collapse?

Soils subject to collapse have a honeycombed structure of

bulky shaped particles or grains held in place by a bonding

material or force.

Common bonding agents include soluble compounds such

as calcareous or ferrous cementation that can be

weakened or partly dissolved by water.

Removal of the supporting material or force occurs when

water is added enabling the soil grains to slide or shear and

move into voids.
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Why Soil Collapse?

Different Inter-Particle Bonds in Collapsible Soils

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Why Soil Collapse?

A basic Unit of Loess Structure

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Why Soil Collapse?

A basic Unit of Loess Structure

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Why Soil Collapse?

Collapse Potential (CP): the relative magnitude of soil

collapse when water is added at stress level of 200 kN/m2.

This term is used as a relative indicator of collapse
potential, beneficial for identification but not for
estimating potential settlements for specific in situ
conditions unless the point of interest in the field happens
to be stressed at about 200.0 kPa.
CP (%) Severity of Collapse
CP = ec/(1+eo) (%)
eo = void ratio at natural water content
ec = change in void ratio due to wetting

01
15
5 10
10 20
> 20

Negligible
Moderate trouble
Trouble
Severe trouble
Very severe trouble

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Identification

Field Identification.

Collapsible criteria based on Simple Soil Properties.

Collapsible criteria based on Laboratory Tests.

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Field Identification

Field Identification

Dry or slightly moist soil

Loose or open fabric
Coatings and clay bridges
Identification of the origin of the soil

Several simple field tests have been proposed to identify

the collapse phenomenon.

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Field Identification

The sausage test (Jennings and Knight ,1975)

Carve two cylindrical samples of undisturbed soil as nearly

as possible to the same diameter and length.

Wet and knead one sample and remold it into a cylinder of
the original diameter.

An obvious decrease in length when compared with the
undisturbed twin sample will confirm a collapsible grain
structure.

A similar reduction in volume may be observed by backfilling
in a pit or trial hole. If the soil a collapsible grain structure, it
will fail to fill the pit completely.

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Field Identification

Dispersion test (Bnites, 1968)

Few grams of soil is dropped at its natural water content into

a glass of water.
Time required for the soil to disperse completely is
recorded.
Collapsible soils typically have a dispersion time of 20 sec to
30 sec.

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Typical collapsible soils are:

Lightly colored.

Low in plasticity with liquid limits below 45, plasticity indices

below 25.

Relatively low dry densities between 10.0 and 16.5 kN/m3.

Porosity of 40% to 60%.

Most criteria for determining the susceptibility of collapse

are based on relationships between the void ratio, water

content, and dry density.
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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Denisov (1953)

Coefficient of subsidence (K)

K = eL/eo
eL = void ratio at liquid limit
eo = natural void ratio
K = 0.50 0.75
: Highly collapsible soil
K = 0.75 1.00
: Collapsible is likely
K > 1.0
: Non-collapsible loam
K = 1.5 2.0
: Non-collapsible soil

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Clevengar (1958):

d 12.6 kN/m3
: soil is likely to be highly collapsible
3
12.6 d 14.0 kN/m : soil may be collapsible
d 14.0 kN/m3
: soil is not likely to be collapsible

Elmamlouk (1985)

d < 90% d max (Standard Proctor Test)

: soil is likely to be highly collapsible
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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Gibbs and Bara (1962)

A soil is susceptible to collapse if:
d (kN/m3) 25.5/(1 + 0.026 wL)

Priklonski (1952)

KD = (w PL)/ PI
KD < 0
: Highly collapsible soil
KD > 0.5
: Non-collapsible

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Feda (1966)

Proposed a critical void ratio (ec) as follows:

ec = 0.85 eL + 0.15 eP

A soil is susceptible to collapse if eo > ec

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Handy (1973): for Iowa loess by Clay content

: < 16%
: 16 24%
: 24 32%
: > 32%

: high probability of collapse

: probability of collapse
: less than 50% probability of collapse
: usually safe from collapse

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Czechslovak Standard
Collapse may occur when:

Silt > 60%

Clay < 15%

S < 60% and LL < 32%

N > 40%

W < 13%

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Collapsible Criteria based on

Simple Soil Properties

Jenning and Knight (1975):

Introduced the concept of critical degree of saturation (Sc)

above which collapse would not occur, suggested values:
Fine gravel
: 6 10%
Fine silty sand : 50 60%
Clayey silt
: 90 95%

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