Soil Mechanics

Lecture 6.
WMSU Effective Stress

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EFFECTIVE STRESS
• Effective stress can be defined as the stress that keeps particles
together. In soil, it is the combined effect of pore water pressure and
total stress that keeps it together. It can also be defined in equation
form as the total stress minus the pore pressure

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Stress transfer in Soils

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Terminologies
Soil Skeleton
- Arrangement of solid particles and inter-particle connection
- Stresses transferred through inter-particle

Pore Water
- Fills all voids space in saturated soils
- Pore pressure at a point is same in all directions and acts normal to surfaces of
solid particles

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Contact Stress and Pore Water Pressure

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END