Chapter 3 The Effective Stress Principle 3.1. The Principle As a student of science and engineering, you are only too familiar with the often encountered situation of how a whole discipline is built up on a seemingly simple law or principle as its foundation. For example, Newton’s Second Law forms the basis for most of the analysis in Mechanics. As a Consulting Geotechnical Engineer, you will soon discover that the Effective Stress Principle enunciated by Karl Terzaghi in 1936 serves just such a role in Geotechnical Engineering. Itis therefore appropriate to look at this Principle right at the outset. ‘The Effective Stress Principle which is valid only for saturated soils consists of two parts. The first part is merely a definition that provides an algebraic statement for what is effective stress. The second part is a statement based on empirical observation that endows effective stress with importance as a determinant of engineering behaviour of soils. Specifically, the two parts are: i) Effective stress, 6’, at a point in a soil mass is equal to the total stress, 6, at that point minus the pore water pressure, u, at that location, ive oO =o-u G.I) Gi) Certain aspects of the engineering behaviour of soil, especially, compression and shear strength are functions of effective stress, i.e. (3.2) (3.3) A study of the engineering properties of soils is concerned with delineating the nature of the functions, f, and f,, which relate compression and shear strength to effective stress. Before beginning to look at the nature of these functions, it is desirable to study the nature of effective stress itself, the stress which according to the Principle is the stress that controls engineering behaviour. The first part of the Effective Stress Principle defines effective stress in terms of two other stresses: the total stress and the pore water pressure. Both total stress and pore water pressure are physically meaningful parameters; stresses that can actually be measured in the field. Each of these two is considered in turn. compression and shear strength =