Shear Strength of Soils

Chapter Two
Shear Strength of Soils
By : Mahmud M.
SIVA Copyright©2001
1. Introduction
Would you like one of these homes to be yours ?
Shear failure of soil under several homes.

1. Introduction
• what is shear strength of a soil ?
• What is shear failure ?
• Why is it important?
• how do we determine shear strength ?
• What are the factors on which it depends?
• Where do we apply in practice?
1. Introduction
 Shear failure in soils

under road and road
sides
1. Introduction
Failure due to inadequate strength at shear interface.
1. What is shear strength of a soil ?
 Shear strength of a soil defined as the capacity to resist
shear stresses.
 The safety of any civil engineering structure is dependent
on the strength of the soil.
 It governs:- the bearing capacity of the soils.
• The stability of slopes in soils.
• The earth pressure against retaining structure.
2. What is shear failure ?
• Shear failure is the results of applied load.
• It is Manifested in the form of sliding along any
plane internal in the soil in cases of shallow
foundation, retaining wall, embankment slope .
Typical retaining wall failure

Failure of strip footing due to shear in soils.
P  Consider cylindrical soil sample

with typical plane of failure AB.
𝜏B
Shear failure occurs when by sliding
S along plane AB
A
Typical foundation failure
Failure of embankment due to shear in soil.
 The soil grains slide over each other along the failure surface
 No crushing of individual
grains
𝜏
 Shear failure occurs when
by sliding along S
plane
Failure of Embankments and Slopes
Failure of retaining wall due to shear in soils
Due to the pressure acting on the

retaining, the retaining wall tends
to moving.
So , What
does mean
failure of
structure ?
3. Why is shear strength important?
• It is important because we need to understand

failure and design earth structures for safe and
satisfactory performance - e.g. a Slope
Questions
• How we can compute stresses along any plane inside a
soil?
• How do we estimate the normal and shear stresses on
any potential failure plane ?
• What are the theories available to estimate of shear
stress at failure?
• What will be the possible shear strength that a soil
can mobilize at failure ?
Normal and Shear Stresses on a Plane
𝜎𝑦
𝜏 𝑦𝑥 𝜏 𝑥𝑦
𝜎
𝜏
B L
𝜎𝑥 𝜎𝑥
𝜎𝑥 𝜃
𝜏 𝑦𝑥
A
𝜏 𝑥𝑦
C
𝜎𝑦
𝜎𝑦
The above figures shows a two- dimensional soil element that is
being subjected to normal and shear stresses ()
Cont. . .
 Let consider vertical plane (BC) and horizontal

plane (AC)
 The inclined plane AB, inclined at angle to plane AC.

 Normal and shear stresses on two mutually
perpendicular plane is known(AC and BC).
• To determine the normal stress and the shear stress
on a plane AB that makes an angle with the plane
AC, we need to consider again the free body diagram
of ABC shown in Figure
Cont. . .
B
A C
The length of
Cont. . .
….. (a)
…..(b)
Cont. . .
• Multiplying eqn. (a) by and eqn. (b) by and adding
Cont. . .
this the normal stress on the plane AB.
Substituting the value of (a)
this the shear stress on plane AB.
Cont. . .
• From eqn.(2) we can choose the value of in such a way that, will
be equal to zero. Substituting we get ,
• For the given values of this equation give two values apart . i.e.
there are two planes that are at right angle to each other on which
the shear are zero. Such planes are called principal planes.
• The normal stresses act on the principal planes are referred to as
principal stresses.
cont. . .
• The value of principal stresses can be found by substituting
equation (3) into equation (1), which yields
Cont. . .
• The normal stress and shear stress that act on

any plane Can be determined by plotting a Mohr's
circle
Stress on vertical plane
stress on
SIVA Copyright©2001 horizontal
Cont. . .
• The stress on plane AB can be determined by moving an
angle in a counterclockwise direction from point M along
the circumference of the Mohr’s circle to reach point Q.
• The abscissa and ordinate of point Q, respectively, give the
normal stress and the shear stress on plane AB.
• Because the ordinates (the shear stresses) of points N and
S are zero, they represent the stresses on the principal
planes. The abscissa of point N is equal to and the abscissa for
point S is .
Cont. . .
• As a special case, if the horizontal plane and vertical plane

were major and minor principal planes, the normal stress and
the shear stress on plane AB could be found by substituting
for
𝜎3
𝜎1
5. what are the factors on which shear
strength depends?
• The shear strength of a soil is derived from two
parameters - called shear strength parameters - which
are inherent properties of the soil.
• They are cohesion (c) and the angle of internal friction
1. Angle of internal friction(), phi, which is depend on

the stress level.
2. Cohesion is a measure of the intermolecular
forces, depend on the water content.

6. Where do we apply in practice ?
embankmen
excavations foundations
•
ts
Knowledge of shear resistance is necessary for design
of any structure in or on soil.

retaining
slopes
• for example: Embankments, Excavations, Foundations,
structures
slopes, Retaining structures
Mohr–Coulomb Failure Criterion
• represents the linear envelope that is obtained

from a plot of the shear strength of a material
versus the applied normal stress.
Mohr-Coulomb Failure Criterion

𝐧 𝝋
𝐭𝐚
+ 𝝈 𝒏
= 𝑪 pe
ve lo 
𝝉ailure
𝒇 en
f
cohesion friction angle
f
c


f is the maximum shear stress the soil can take without
failure, under normal stress of .
Mohr Circles & Failure Envelope
As loading progresses, Mohr
circle becomes larger…
GL

c
Y c
c
.. and finally failure occurs

when Mohr circle touches the
envelope
Mechanical concept of
sliding
The angle between

failure plane and the
major principal plane is
given by the following
equation:
Coulomb’s failure criteria: (a) total stress (b) effective stress.

 The magnitudes of as
sandy soil varies from
 In clay soils it varies
𝟗𝟎 °+𝝋 𝛗′
𝜶= =𝟒𝟓 °+
𝟐 𝟐
From the above figure, a relationship b/n the state of stress () and
shear strength parameters may be formulated by equating the radius
of Mohr's circle to the distance of center of the circle from the failure
envelope.
Considering that
CONT. . .
• This equation can be expressed in terms of
principal stresses
√
′ ′
1−sin𝜑 ′ 1−sin 𝜑
𝜎 3=𝜎 1 −2C
SIVA Copyright©2001 1+sin𝜑′ 1−sin𝜑′
CONT. . ..
u  0
Drained and Undrained Shear strength

• Drained condition occurs when the excess pore water
pressure developed during loading of a soil
dissipates,resulting in volume changes in the soil.
• Undrained condition occurs when the excess pore water
pressure cannot drain, at least quickly from the soil
• During the life of the geotechnical structure, called the long-
term condition, the excess pore water pressure developed
by a loading dissipates and drained condition applies
Cont. . .
• During construction, and shortly after, called the short-term
condition, soils with low permeability (fine-grained soils) do
not have sufficient time for the excess pore water pressure to
dissipate and undrained condition applies.
• Dynamic loading, such as during an earthquake, is imposed
so quickly that even coarse-grained soils do not have sufficient
time to dissipate the excess pore water pressure and undrained
condition applies.
• The shear strength of a fine-grained soil under undrained
condition is called the undrained shear strength, Su.
• The undrained shear strength, Su is the radius of Mohr’s total
stress circle; that is:
Determination of shear strength
parameters of soils (c, f or c’, f’)
Laboratory tests on
specimens taken from Field tests
representative
undisturbed samples
1. Vane shear test
Most common laboratory tests 2.Pocket penetrometer
to determine the shear strength 3.Fall cone
parameters are, 4.Pressuremeter
1.Direct shear test 5.Static cone penetrometer
2.Unconfined compression test
6.Standard penetration test
3.Triaxial shear test
The direct shear test and the Triaxial test are the two commonly
used techniques for determining the shear strength parameters
Laboratory tests
 Field conditions
𝑍
A representative
soil sample
𝜎 𝑣𝑐
𝜎ℎ 𝜎ℎ
𝑐
𝑐
𝜎 𝑣𝑐 +∆ 𝜎
𝜎 𝜎ℎ 𝑐
𝑣𝑐
Before construction
𝜎 𝑣𝑐 +∆ 𝜎

Shear Strength of Soils

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Shear Strength of Soils

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter Two

Shear Strength of Soils

Would you like one of these homes to be yours ?

Shear failure of soil under several homes.

 Shear failure in soils

Failure due to inadequate strength at shear interface.

Typical retaining wall failure

P  Consider cylindrical soil sample

Due to the pressure acting on the

• It is important because we need to understand

 Let consider vertical plane (BC) and horizontal

 The inclined plane AB, inclined at angle to plane AC.

• Multiplying eqn. (a) by and eqn. (b) by and adding

this the normal stress on the plane AB.

Substituting the value of (a)

this the shear stress on plane AB.

• The normal stress and shear stress that act on

Stress on vertical plane

• As a special case, if the horizontal plane and vertical plane

1. Angle of internal friction(), phi, which is depend on

2. Cohesion is a measure of the intermolecular

forces, depend on the water content.

of any structure in or on soil.

• represents the linear envelope that is obtained

.. and finally failure occurs

The angle between

Coulomb’s failure criteria: (a) total stress (b) effective stress.

Drained and Undrained Shear strength

You might also like