Analysis of the compression of structured soils using the disturbed state concept

The aim of this note is to quantify the influence of soil structure on the compression behaviour of natural soils using the disturbed state concept (D SC). The behaviour of the fully adjusted state is chosen to be that of the corresponding soil in a reconstituted condition so that the disturbance fun ction is a direct measure of the effects of soil structure. A new DSC compr ession model is proposed. This model is able to describe the compression be haviour of structured soils under loading, swelling and reloading. Special versions of the proposed model are also described for situations (a) where the compression behaviour of the corresponding reconstituted soils is linea r in the e-ln p' space and (b) where the compression is one-dimensional. Th e ability of the proposed model and its various versions to describe the co mpression behaviour of structured soils has been verified. Copyright (C) 20 00 John Wiley & sons, Ltd.