Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
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Full Length Article

Hydraulic path dependence of shear strength for compacted loess

Pan Chen a, b, *, Shengao Jia a, Xiaoqi Wei c, Pingping Sun d, Panpan Yi a, Changfu Wei a, b, **
a
State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China
b
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
c
Xuzhou Highway Engineering Corporation, Xuzhou, 221000, China
d
School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710061, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Shear strength is an essential geotechnical parameter for assessing the landslide potential of loess slopes
Received 16 August 2022 under rainfall infiltration and farm irrigation conditions on the loess plateau. However, the hydraulic
Received in revised form path dependence of shear strength for compacted loess under varying rainfall infiltration conditions has
23 October 2022
not been thoroughly investigated yet. To this end, a series of direct shear tests and nuclear magnetic
Accepted 28 December 2022
Available online 7 January 2023
resonance (NMR) measurements are carried out on compacted loess. The shear strength tests were
continuously implemented on loess specimens under scanning wetting paths besides initial drying
paths. The experimental data quantitatively verify the significant effect of hydraulic paths applied to
Keywords:
Shear strength
specimens on shear strength of compacted loess. The unique failure envelope of shear strength of loess is
Loess identified under the effective stress framework based on intergranular stress, which verifies that the
Hydraulic hysteresis effective stress framework can consider the effect of hydraulic paths on shear strength. Based on the
Effective stress effective stress, a shear strength formula is proposed to characterize shear strengths under varying
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) hydraulic paths, in which the parameters from the soil-water retention curve and shear strength at
saturated state are simply required. The proposed shear strength formula can properly predict the
measured shear strength data of compacted loess experiencing three hydraulic paths. Furthermore, the
distribution curves of transverse relaxation time for pore water in soil under varying hydraulic paths are
simultaneously measured using the NMR method. The physical mechanism for the difference in shear
strength of loess subjected to different hydraulic paths can be uncovered based on soil-water evolutions
in pores in microscale.
Ó 2023 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
The evolution of the shear strength of unsaturated soils is an
important influencing factor for assessing the stability of slopes
under rainfall infiltration and farm irrigation conditions. The shear
strength of unsaturated soils varies widely under drying and wet-
ting conditions due to the effect of hydraulic hysteresis (e.g. Tami
et al., 2004; Khoury and Miller, 2012; Chen et al., 2013; Kristo
* Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Wuhan, 430071, China.
** Corresponding author. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Wuhan, 430071, China.
E-mail addresses: pchen@whrsm.ac.cn (P. Chen), cfwei@whrsm.ac.cn (C. Wei).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences.
et al., 2019). The shear strength of soils under the drying path is
generally higher than that under the wetting path (e.g. Goh et al.,
2010). However, the landslide potential of soil slopes can be
underestimated if the effect of hydraulic hysteresis is neglected (e.g.
Likos et al., 2014; Chen et al., 2017a; Jing et al., 2022). The shear
strength behavior related to the hydraulic path is referred to as the
hydraulic path dependence of shear strength in unsaturated soils.
The transition of hydraulic paths in soils usually occurs under
intermittent rainfall and water table fluctuation events. A signifi-
cant change in shear strength is observed from a drying path to a
wetting path, which can reach several hundred kilopascals (e.g. Xu
et al., 2021). However, the shear strength from the initial drying
path is commonly used to assess landslide potentials under rainfall
infiltration conditions (e.g. Tami et al., 2004; Chen et al., 2018a),
which may offer an erroneous conclusion on slope stability. Accu-
rately characterizing the effect of hydraulic path dependence on
shear strength is critical for assessing landslide potentials under
intermittent rainfall and water table fluctuation conditions. Hence,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2022.12.006
1674-7755 Ó 2023 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882 1873

the hydraulic path dependence of shear strength needs to be an alternative detection technique, the nuclear magnetic resonance
thoroughly investigated and a physics-based model of shear (NMR) method has been widely used to determine the evolution of
strength is yet to be established. pore structure in soils and rocks (e.g. Tian et al., 2018; Xu et al.,
The effect of hydraulic path dependence on shear strength and 2019; Tian and Wei, 2020). Hence, the NMR method can be used
slope stability during drying and wetting paths is of great interest to quantitatively determine the water distribution in fine-grained
to researchers (e.g. Tami et al., 2004; Goh et al., 2010; Khoury and unsaturated soils at various water contents, which is useful to
Miller, 2012; Chen et al., 2013, 2017a; Likos et al., 2014). In shear offer the physical basis to reveal the evolution of shear strength
tests on unsaturated soils, most research focused on the relation- under varying hydraulic paths.
ship between shear strength and water content from the fully In this paper, the shear strength of compacted loess and its
saturated state to dry states (i.e. initial drying path). Under inter- physical mechanism under varying hydraulic paths are studied. A
mittent precipitation conditions, the soil-water evolution may series of direct shear tests is first carried out on the compacted loess
differ notably with varying hydraulic paths, in which hydraulic under varying hydraulic paths (i.e. the initial drying path, and
hysteresis occurs (i.e. capillary hysteresis and entrapped air) (e.g. scanning wetting paths). Then, the effective stress based on inter-
Chen and Wei, 2016; 2019; Fu et al., 2021). The research work on granular stress is used to capture the effect of hydraulic path
the hydraulic path dependence of shear strength is limited. By dependence on shear strength. A shear strength model is proposed
investigating current research, there are usually two types of work and validated using the measured shear strength data, in which the
on the effect of the hydraulic path dependence of shear strength. effect of hydraulic path dependence is concluded. Finally, the NMR
One type is that the change of hydraulic paths is achieved by technique is used to detect the pore water distribution in loess
controlled matric suction. Due to the time-consuming measure- under drying and wetting processes. Based on the NMR measure-
ment, limited experimental data were obtained in the literature ments, the characteristics of pore water distributions are used to
(e.g. Goh et al., 2010). The other type is that the difference in shear reveal the mechanism of shear strength variations under the effect
strength between only fully dried and saturated states is obtained. of hydraulic path dependence.
The effect of drying and wetting cycles on the shear strength of soil
usually was explored in the literature (e.g. Chen et al., 2018b; Nie
2. Material and method
et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2021). However, the experimental data of
shear strength of unsaturated soils are deficient for continuous
2.1. Physical properties of loess
hydraulic paths, especially for scanning hydraulic paths. Thus, the
hydraulic path dependence of shear strength needs to be fully
The loess used in the experiments was sampled from Luochuan
studied, which can contribute to accumulating shear strength data
County, Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province in China with a sampling
and developing an effective shear strength formula for unsaturated
depth of 5 m. The soil is categorized as Malan loess with yellow
soils under varying hydraulic paths.
color. The initial water content is 16% and the dry density is 1.42 g/
Based on Terzaghi’s effective stress concept, important contri-
cm3. The physical properties have been measured according to the
butions of the effective stress framework to the fundamentals of
testing standard (ASTM D6528-17, 2017; ASTM D4318-17E1, 2018;
unsaturated soils have been made over the past seventy years (e.g.
ASTM D7928-21, 2021), as shown in Table 1. According to the uni-
Bishop, 1959; Khalili et al., 2004, 2010; Lu et al., 2010; Zhang and Lu,
fied soil classification system (USCS) (ASTM D2487-17, 2020), the
2020). It is well established that the mechanical behaviors of un-
loess can be classified as low-plasticity clay (CL). The grain-size
saturated soils are mainly determined by effective stress. The direct
distribution, determined by wet sieving and hydrometer analysis,
shear test is usually used to validate the proposed effective stress
is shown in Fig. 1, with the clay of 11.1%, the silt of 84.6%, and the
formula by processing the shear strength data of unsaturated soils
sand of 4.3%. The quartz and clay minerals are main mineral com-
(e.g. Khalili et al., 2004; Lu et al., 2010). Wei (2014) developed an
ponents in the loess with mass contents of 51.7% and 20.4%,
effective stress framework for porous media including the physi-
respectively.
cochemical effect. According to the effective stress formula for
unsaturated soils under the theoretical framework, the mechanical
behaviors of soils are determined by the current soil-water state 2.2. Method for preparing loess specimens
and the hydraulic history of the soil. Although the effective stress
formula in Wei (2014) has been validated for soils and rocks under The initial water content and dry density of compacted speci-
different stress paths (e.g. Ma et al., 2019; Yao et al., 2020), the mens were set to the same as that in the in situ conditions. In the
effective stress formula has not been verified under various hy- direct shear tests, the diameter and height of the specimens are
draulic paths.
Apart from quantitatively characterizing the shear strength
Table 1
evolution of unsaturated soils, the physical mechanism between Physical properties and mineral composition of the loess.
shear strength characteristics and the soil-water retention behavior
Property Parameter Value Unit
has also raised great concern from a microscale view. Based on the
microscale analysis of pore flow, capillary hysteresis and entrapped Physical properties Specific gravity, Gs 2.72
air are evidenced to be the main mechanism for hydraulic hyster- Liquid limit, wL 23.7 %
Plastic limit, wP 15.2 %
esis under drainage and imbibition processes (e.g. Likos and Lu, Plastic index, IP 8.5 %
2004; Chen et al., 2019). Based on the advanced detection tech- Grain size distribution Sand content (2e0.075 mm) 4.3 %
nique, the discrepancy in the air-water distribution was evident Silt content (0.075e0.002 mm) 84.6 %
under drying and wetting hydraulic paths in the literature (e.g. Clay content (
0.002 mm) 11.1 %
USCS CL
Cadoret et al., 1995; Khosravi et al., 2020; An et al., 2022). Using the
Mineral composition Quartz 51.7 %
X-ray tomography method, Cadoret et al. (1995) found that the pore Calcite 13.1 %
water distribution in the limestone under the wetting path is more Feldspar 11 %
homogeneous than that under the drying path. However, the X-ray Amphiboles 2.1 %
computerized tomography method is limited to distinguishing the Dolomite 1.7 %
Clay minerals 20.4 %
pore water between fine-grained soils (i.e. silty or clayey soils). As
1874 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
Fig. 1. Grain size distribution curve of Luochuan loess.
61.8 mm and 20 mm, respectively. While in NMR tests, the diameter
and height of the specimens are 45 mm and 20 mm, respectively.
To understand the dependence of the shear strength evolution
and pore water distribution in the loess on hydraulic paths, the
specimens were carefully prepared under varying hydraulic paths.
Three hydraulic paths are properly chosen to prepare specimens
with the same water content, including the initial drying path, and
two different wetting paths. The drying processes of specimens
were implemented using the controlled suction method. However,
the specimens under wetting hydraulic paths were prepared by the
controlled water content method. Compared to the controlled
suction method, the preparation time for specimens can be greatly
saved and implemented easily when the controlled water content
method is used. The preparation procedures for specimens are
shown in Fig. 2 and described in detail as follows:
(1) The initial drying path (ID): The specimens are fully satu-
rated first using the vacuum method and dried to different
water content states, which is defined as the initial drying
path (ID). The specimens were dried by the axis translation
technique under different air pressure conditions in a pres-
sure plate apparatus (Soil Moisture Equipment Corp., 2015),
as shown in Fig. 2a. The saturated water content of speci-
mens is 33.3% at the zero matric suction. The water contents
w at equilibrium state are 24.6%, 19.3%, 15.7% and 13.7% under
varying matric suctions. The prepared specimens with
different water contents were used for the direct shear tests
under the ID path.
Fig. 2. Flowchart for preparing specimens under (a) drying and (b) wetting hydraulic paths.
(2) The first scanning wetting path (1SW): The specimens are
first dried to the water content of 13.2% from the fully satu-
rated state. To avoid the water blockage effect, the air entry
value (20 kPa) was first applied on saturated specimens
before the setting pressure was applied (Chen et al., 2017b).
Then the specimens were wetted to different water content
states, which is defined as the first scanning wetting path
(1SW). The mass water contents at equilibrium states are
15.7%, 19.3% and 24.6% during wetting processes, respec-
tively. From Fig. 2b, the wetted water contents of specimens
were obtained using the burette with deionized water
spraying on the surface carefully. After the wetting processes,
to keep the water homogeneity in soils, the specimens are
sealed with thin film and put into a sealed chamber under a
constant room temperature of 25  C for two weeks. To verify
the water homogeneity in soils using the controlled water
content method, a set of three samples was used to deter-
mine water contents at different depths in the soil cakes.
After the wetted specimens had been sealed for two weeks,
they are taken out and cut into three layers equally, i.e. the
upper, medium and lower layers, as shown in Fig. 3. The
water content in three layers of soil was separately deter-
mined according to the ASTM standard (ASTM D2216-19,
2019). By comparing mass water contents in three layers,
the difference is less than 0.1%. The results show that the
controlled water content method was applicable for
achieving different water content states under the wetting
path.
(3) The second wetting path (2SW): Compared to the path 1SW,
the specimens were dried to a drier state with the water
content of 11.8% from the fully saturated state. Then, the
specimens were wetted to water contents of 15.7%, 19.3% and
24.6%, respectively. The aforementioned method was used
repeatedly for reaching equilibrium states of specimens un-
der the path 2SW.
The schematic diagram of soil-water states in specimens under
three hydraulic paths (i.e. ID, 1SW and 2SW) is given in Fig. 4. From
Fig. 4, due to the effect of hydraulic hysteresis, the suction could
vary significantly though water content is the same when a soil
experiences different hydraulic paths. These specimens were pre-
pared for all the direct shear and NMR tests.
2.3. Measurement method for loess
The NMR technique was used to explore the pore water dis-
tributions in compacted loess under drying and wetting hydraulic
paths. The measurements were performed using a low-field mini-
NMR equipment with a magnetic field intensity of 0.52 T and a
 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
Fig. 3. Verification of the uniform water distribution using the controlled water content method.
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram for preparing specimens under three hydraulic paths.
frequency of 23 MHz, as shown in Fig. 5a. The equipment consists
of a magnet unit, a radio-frequency (RF) unit, and data acquisition
and inversion units. The soil specimen is put into the tube
wrapped around RF coils in the magnet unit. To avoid the inter-
ference from environmental conditions, the insulation layer is
used to cover the magnets. The permanent magnets are used to
polarize spins of protons in pore water. After the perturbation
from RF magnetic field, spins can gradually come back to the
equilibrium state from a non-equilibrium state. During returning
Fig. 5. Schematic diagram for the NMR equipment and the typical T2 distribution curve.
1875
processes, the induction decay curves (FID) from the NMR signals
are measured using the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) pulse
sequence recorded in the data acquisition unit. Then the distri-
bution of the transverse relaxation time T2 is obtained based on
the inversion of the measured induction decay curve using Lap-
lace transformation in the data inversion unit (e.g. Tian et al.,
2014; Tian and Wei 2020). The typical distribution of T2 is
shown in Fig. 5b. Transverse relaxation time T2 of the horizontal
axis is the characteristic time of spin-spin relaxation of protons,
and the amplitude value A of the vertical axis represents the signal
quantization of protons in pore water at T2. A standard liquid
sample with known NMR characteristics was first employed to
validate the NMR signal. When all the settings were ready, the
equipment was used for NMR measurements of soil specimens.
Before the specimens were used for direct shear tests, the T2
distributions were measured for the loess under different hy-
draulic paths, i.e. ID, 1SW and 2SW.
The soil-water retention curve (SWRC) for the initial drying path
was determined using the pressure plate method with the eight
matric suction steps, i.e. 10, 20, 30, 60, 100, 190, 260 and 400 kPa
(ASTM C1699-09, 2015). The SWRCs for wetting paths were
determined using the transient water release and imbibition
method by applying different suctions in one-step outflow tests for
the loess (Wayllace and Lu, 2012).
For direct shear tests, to determine the Mohr-Coulomb failure
envelope, four normal stresses on specimens were chosen as 50 kPa,
100 kPa, 200 kPa and 400 kPa, respectively. To prevent the change of
water content in soils during the shear test, the quick shear test
method was adopted with a shear rate of 0.8 mm/min (ASTM D6528-
17, 2017).
1876 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882

2.4. Shear strength equation for loess

Due to the effect of the hydraulic path on shear strength of

unsaturated soil, the strength behavior cannot be well character-
ized using the conventional effective stress framework. Hence, a
formula of effective stress accounting for the effect of hydraulic
paths was proposed by Wei (2014) to characterize the shear
strength of loess under various hydraulic paths. By considering the
physicochemical effect, the formula of effective stress was given by
Wei (2014), in which the effect of long-range repulsive forces from
double-layer interactions is stated as the Donnan’s osmotic effect.
By comparing the measured data and predicted results using the
effective stress model, the Donnan’s osmotic effect is negligible for
the low plasticity soils (Ma et al., 2016). The tensor expression s0 of
the effective stress can be simplified for the low-plasticity loess and
given as follows:

Zqs
0
s ¼ ðs  p 1Þ þ qj þa
jdq (1)
q

where s is the total stress tensor; pa is the pore air pressure; 1 is the
second-order unit tensor; q is the volume water content; the rela-
tion between the volumetric water content q and the mass water
content w is q ¼ Gs w, in which Gs is the specific gravity of soil; j is
the matric suction; and qs is the saturated volume water content. It
should be noted that the relation between q and j represents the
SWRC. The soil-water retention model developed by van
Genuchten (1980) is used to characterize SWRC:
" 1=m #1=n
1 qs  qr
j¼ 1 (2)
a q  qr

where qr is the residual water content; a, m and n are the model

parameters; and m ¼ 1  1=n is generally used for simplification.
By substituting the formula of effective stress in Eq. (1) into the
Mohr-Coulomb criterion, the equation for the shear strength of
unsaturated loess can be deduced as follows:

 Zqs 
sf ¼ c0 þ s  pa þ qj þ jdq tanf0 (3)
q

where sf is the shear strength; c0 and f0 are the effective cohesion

and effective frictional angle at saturated state, respectively; and
s ¼ sn when the normal stress sn is applied on the specimen in the
direct shear tests. For the test conditions, the pore air pressure is at
atmospheric condition, pa ¼ 0. The apparent cohesion suggested
in the literature can be computed under the varying water contents
as follows (Chen et al., 2013):

 Zqs 
0
c ¼ c þ qj þ jdq tanf0 (4)
q
Fig. 6. Evolution of shear strength of the loess: (a) ID, (b) 1SW, and (c) 2SW.

3. Results and analyses

3.1. Shear strength of loess under varying hydraulic paths
Fig. 6 shows the changes in shear strength of the loess with the
normal stresses under three hydraulic paths, i.e. ID, 1SW and 2SW.
From Fig. 6, the shear strength increases with decreasing water
content under normal stresses for different hydraulic paths. By
comparing the shear strength at the saturated water content of
33.3%, the increment of shear strength is 42.9 kPa at sn ¼ 50 kPa
and 51.3 kPa at sn ¼ 400 kPa when the water content of specimens
reaches 13.7% along the ID path, as shown in Fig. 3a. The experi-
mental results show that the shear strength can be enhanced
greatly under the drying conditions, which evidences the existence
of the steep slope on the loess plateau. From Fig. 6b and c, the shear
 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
strengths of the specimen under wetting paths are smaller than
that under the ID path. The shear strengths of specimens are the
smallest under the 2SW path with the lowest water content state
where the transition from the drying to wetting process occurs.
Compared to the shear strength at the saturated water content, the
increment of shear strength is 29.4 kPa and 14.5 kPa at sn ¼
50 kPa, 42.8 kPa and 24.2 kPa at sn ¼ 400 kPa when the water
content of specimens is 15.7% along the 1SW path and 2SW path,
respectively, as shown in Fig. 6b. Furthermore, it is found that fitted
failure envelopes are almost parallel for all three hydraulic paths,
indicating that they share similar slopes of curves.
To characterize the effect of the hydraulic path on shear
strength, the evolutions of shear strength of the compacted loess
with the same water content are shown in Fig. 7. From Fig. 7, for all
four water content conditions, the shear strengths of specimens
under the ID path are the largest, and those under the 2SW path are
the smallest. At the water content of w ¼ 24.6%, the maximum
difference between the shear strength of specimens is 19.1 kPa for
the higher normal stress (i.e. 400 kPa) and 8.3 kPa for the lower
normal stress (i.e. 50 kPa). At the water content of w ¼ 15.7%, the
maximum difference between the shear strength of the specimens
is 16.3 kPa for sn ¼ 400 kPa and 10.6 kPa for sn ¼ 50 kPa. The
maximum difference of shear strengths between ID and 2SW paths
is 23.5 kPa at water content of w ¼ 19.3% under the same normal
Fig. 7. Evolution of shear strength of the loess under varying hydraulic paths: (a) w ¼ 24.6%, (b) w ¼ 19.3%, (c) w ¼ 15.7%, and (d) w ¼ 13.7%.
1877
stress. The experimental results show that hydraulic paths that the
soil experiences have a significant effect on its shear strength. The
overestimation of the shear strength and slope stability can occur
when the shear strength data under the initial drying path are used
in many cases. Hence, with the change in water content, the effect
of the hydraulic path needs to be considered in assessing the evo-
lution of shear strength and slope stability under rainfall infiltration
and farm irrigation conditions in loess plateau areas.
By means of the failure envelope equation from the Mohr-
Coulomb criterion, the apparent cohesion and internal friction
angle of soils are obtained by fitting the measured shear strength
data under different normal stresses. Fig. 8 presents the changes in
cohesion and internal friction angle with water content for all the
hydraulic paths. From Fig. 8, the apparent cohesion increases with
decreasing water content. The apparent cohesion with the ID path
is larger than that with 1SW and 2SW paths under the same water
content. For example, the apparent cohesions are 33.8 kPa, 26.7 kPa
and 20.5 kPa for ID, 1SW and 2SW paths at a water content of 19.3%,
respectively. The largest discrepancy of cohesion between ID and
2SW paths is 14.2 kPa at w ¼ 15.7%. Furthermore, the change of the
internal friction angle f0 is quite limited under different water
content and hydraulic path conditions, ranging from 24.6 to 26.2
with an average value of 25.5 , in which the maximum difference of
f0 equals 1.6 . Hence, it is acceptable to assume that f0 of the loess
1878 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882

Fig. 9. SWRCs under varying hydraulic paths.

Table 2
Model parameters for SWRCs in Eq. (2).

Hydraulic path qs qr a (kPa1) n

ID 0.478 0.076 0.045 1.41

1SW 0.44 0.126 0.075 1.45
2SW 0.39 0.125 0.065 1.43

Fig. 8. Evolution of shear strength parameters with water content under various hy-
draulic paths: (a) Apparent cohesion, and (b) Internal friction angle.

remains stable with the change of water content in the shear tests.
Eq. (3) can be used to characterize shear strength behavior of loess
under the evolution of water content.

3.2. Validation of effective stress

Fig. 9 shows measured SWRCs under three hydraulic paths. Due

to the effect of hydraulic hysteresis, SWRCs are different under
varying hydraulic paths. At the same water content, the suction
with the ID curve is the highest, and that with the 2SW curve is the
lowest. The soil-water retention model in Eq. (2) is used to fit the
measured data, and obtained parameters are listed in Table 2.
With the effective stress formula (Eq. (1)), the measured shear
strength data in Fig. 6 can be replotted based on the relation be-
tween the water content and suction, as shown in Fig. 10. By
comparing with the results from Fig. 6, the measured data almost
fall on the linear curve between the effective stress and shear
strength with a quite high coefficient of determination (R2 ¼ 0.98).
The results show that the failure envelope of shear strength is
unique under the proposed effective stress framework in Wei
(2014), which is not affected by varying hydraulic paths. Hence,
similar to the effective stress for saturated soils, the effective stress
of unsaturated loess is independent of hydraulic paths. The results
validate the effective stress formula (Eq. (1)), which satisfies the
Fig. 10. Relation between shear strength and effective stress using Eq. (1).
requirement of the conception of effective stress and can be used to
characterize the shear strength behavior of unsaturated soils.
3.3. Prediction of shear strength
The shear strength model proposed in Eq. (3) can be adopted to
predict shear strengths of unsaturated soils under varying hy-
draulic paths. According to the proposed model for shear strength,
the parameters from the shear strength at saturated state and
SWRC are needed to predict shear strength of unsaturated soils
under varying water contents. Due to that shear strength for
saturated soil is usually measured, the sensitivity analysis of
SWRC parameters (qs, qr, a, n) in Eq. (3) was performed, as given in
Table 3. The shear strength parameters for a soil at saturated state
 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
Table 3
Sensitivity analysis of model parameters in Eq. (3).
No. qs qr a (kPa1)
1 0.478, 0.43, 0.38 0.076 0.045
2 0.478 0.076, 0.1, 0.12 0.045
3 0.478 0.076 0.045, 0.09, 0.18
4 0.478 0.076 0.045
of c0 ¼ 9.3 kPa and f0 ¼ 25.1 were used. The evolutions of shear
strengths with the changes of four SWRC parameters are shown in
Fig. 11. From Fig. 11a, it is found that shear strengths decrease with
decreasing saturated water contents under varying normal
stresses, which verifies that shear strength of soil along the drying
path is larger than that along the wetting path in Fig. 7. From
Fig. 11b, the shear strengths increase with increasing residual
water contents, which is consistent with the measurements that
shear strength of fine-grained soils significantly increases when
the water content is close to the residual water content (e.g. Kristo
et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2021). Further, shear strengths under
different normal stresses decrease with increasing a and n.
By combining the measured SWRCs, the shear strength formula
in Eq. (3) is used to predict the measured shear strengths of com-
pacted loess. The comparison between the measured data and
predicted curves is shown in Fig. 12. From Fig. 12, the shear strength
Fig. 11. Shear strength evolution under varying model parameters using Eq. (3): (a) qs, (b) qr, (c) a, and (d) n.
1879
increases with decreasing water content, especially under relatively
lower water conditions. The evolution of shear strength with water
n content shows a similar nonlinear relation under different hy-
1.41
draulic paths. The predicted results are generally in agreement with
1.41 measured data. Hence, the shear strength formula (Eq. (3)) based
1.41 on the effective stress is generally applicable for describing the
1.41, 1.8, 2.4 shear strength behavior of unsaturated loess, in which the effect of
hydraulic path dependence is considered.
Fig. 13 shows the comparison of measured and predicted using
Eq. (4) in apparent cohesions under different hydraulic paths. From
Fig. 13, the predicted curves of the apparent cohesion under three
hydraulic paths (i.e. ID, 1SW and 2SW) are well consistent with the
measured data with high coefficient of correlations (R2 > 0.9).
However, there are yet some discrepancies between measured data
and predicted results at some water contents. This may be due to
some tested errors and the assumption of constant internal friction
angle under varying water content states in Eq. (4).
3.4. Evolution mechanism of shear strength with NMR
To explore the physical mechanism of the evolution of shear
strength under different hydraulic paths, the measured T2 distri-
butions are shown in Fig. 14. The linear relationship between the
pore radius r and T2 has been obtained in the literature (e.g. Ma
1880 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
w
w
Fig. 12. Comparison of measured and predicted shear strengths using Eq. (3): (a) ID,
(b) 1SW, and (c) 2SW.
et al., 2020; Tian and Wei, 2020), which can be given as r ¼ bT2, and
b is the surface relaxation parameter. Therefore, the pore size of
holding water pores can be quantified by the T2 distributions using
the NMR method. That is to say, the large value of T2 at the right of
the T2 distribution represents the pore water in large-size pore, and
the small T2 at the left of T2 distributions represents the pore water
Fig. 13. Comparison of measured and predicted apparent cohesions.
in small-size pore. Furthermore, the evolution of pore water dis-
tribution in compacted loess can be represented by the change of T2
distribution curves.
From Fig. 14a, the results show that the distributions of pore
water are quite different under three hydraulic paths, even though
the water content is the same (w ¼ 24.6%). For the ID path, the pore
water distribution is inhomogeneous due to the existence of the
bimodal distribution of T2. The main reason is the effect of air
entrapped on the pore water flow when the specimens are drying
from the saturated state to the current water content (e.g. Wei,
2014; Chen et al., 2015). For the 1SW path, the pore water con-
tent decreases in larger pores (3e10 ms) and increases in smaller
pores (0.1e3 ms). For the 2SW path, the pore water content further
decreases in larger pores (2e10 ms) and increases in smaller pores
(0.1e2 ms). The T2 curve is closer to the unimodal distribution, for
which the distribution of pore water is homogeneous. By con-
necting the difference between the shear strength of specimens
under the three hydraulic paths, the results show that a more ho-
mogenous distribution of pore water leads to the lower shear
strength of specimens. In Fig. 14b, at the water content of w ¼ 19.3%,
the distribution of pore water is more homogenous than that at the
high water content, w ¼ 24.6%, due to the decreased effect of the
bimodal distribution of T2. For three hydraulic paths, during the
change of water content, and the distribution of pore water in
larger pores gradually disappears. A more homogenous distribution
can be found under the 2SW path. A similar tendency in the pore
water distribution can also be observed in Fig. 10c. The results show
the shear strength of loess is lower when the distribution of pore
water is more homogenous (i.e. wetting paths). Hence, the evolu-
tion of pore water distribution is responsible for the difference in
shear strengths under different hydraulic paths.
4. Conclusions
To explore the effect of hydraulic path dependence on shear
strength of compacted loess, a series of direct shear tests is
continuously carried out on the compacted loess under three hy-
draulic paths (i.e. ID, 1SW and 2SW). The effective stress formula
based on intergranular stress is introduced to capture the shear
strength behavior of unsaturated loess. A simple shear strength
formula is proposed to capture the shear strength behavior under
the effect of hydraulic path dependence and is validated using the
measured data. With the aid of the NMR technique, the T2
 P. Chen et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 15 (2023) 1872e1882
Fig. 14. T2 distributions in loess under different water content states.
distributions are used to reveal the physical mechanism of shear
strength from a microscale view. The main conclusions are drawn
as follows.
(1) The experimental results show that the hydraulic path has a
significant effect on the shear strength of unsaturated loess.
The increment of shear strength for compacted loess can
1881
reach 50 kPa under various normal stresses along the initial
drying path. Under the same water contents, the shear
strength with the ID path is the largest and that with the
2SW path is the lowest, in which the largest difference of
shear strength is 23.5 kPa at water content w ¼ 19.3% under a
normal stress. The largest discrepancy of cohesion between
ID and 2SW paths is 14.2 kPa at w ¼ 15.7%. Under three
varying hydraulic paths, the internal friction angle f0 keeps
almost a constant value of 25.5 with the maximum
discrepancy of 1.6 . The results also show that the over-
estimation on the shear strength of unsaturated soil can
occur only when the initial drying path is considered under
rainfall infiltration conditions.
(2) The measured shear strength data almost fall on the linear
curve when the effective stress framework based on inter-
granular stress is used. The failure envelope of shear strength
is independent of hydraulic paths. The results verify that the
effective stress framework based on intergranular stress can
capture shear strength characteristics under varying hy-
draulic paths.
(3) A new shear strength formula is proposed to simply char-
acterize shear strengths of unsaturated soils under varying
hydraulic paths, in which the soil-water retention curve and
shear strength at saturated state of soil only need to be
measured. Compared to the measured data, the results show
that the proposed shear strength formula can well predict
the shear strength of unsaturated loess, in which the effect of
the hydraulic path dependence on shear strength is included.
(4) The pore water distribution under varying hydraulic paths
can be characterized by the T2 distributions using the NMR
technique. The physical mechanism for the difference in
shear strength of unsaturated loess experienced initial dry-
ing and scanning wetting paths can be uncovered using soil-
water evolutions in pores in microscale based on the NMR
measurement. It is found that the shear strengths of loess
specimens along wetting paths are lower than those along
the drying path due to that the pore water distributions in
specimens along wetting paths are more homogenous. The
evolution of pore water distribution is responsible for the
difference in shear strengths of unsaturated soils that have
experienced hydraulic paths.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41877269, 12002243 and
41907046).
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Pan Chen obtained his BSc degrees in Civil Engineering from
Wuhan University of Science and Technology, China, in 2006,
and his PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from Institute of
Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China,
in 2011. After that, he was affiliated as scientific staff with
Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of
Sciences. His research interests include (1) experimental in-
vestigations on the hydro-mechanical behaviors of unsatu-
rated soils; (2) theoretical study and numerical modeling of
the landslide mechanism in the natural-engineered soil slopes
under infiltration conditions; and (3) experimental investiga-
tions and constitutive modelling on the ocean sediments. He
has been participated in several China national and Chinese Academy of Sciences
projects.