Shear strength of soils is an important engineering aspect because shear strength characteristics are widely used in various applications such as bearing capacity and earth pressure of soils. Shear strength of sands is somewhat simpler than that of clays, which are complex materials exhibiting engineering behaviour difficult to predict. Shear strength of clays depends of water content, drainage conditions, rate of loading and degree of compaction.Unconfined compression tests were performed on cylindrical samples compacted at different remoulded densities chosen from the compaction curves of...

Expansive soils are problematic in nature by virtue of their innate capacity to undergo volume changes when there are changes in moisture regime. These soils swell when they absorb water and shrink when water evaporates from them. So, lightly loaded civil engineering structures founded in these soils are subjected to alternate swelling and shrinkage in rainy and summer seasons. As a result, they experience unsightly cracking. The structural members that get affected are flooring, walls, columns, grade beams, etc. The types of damage are disruption or disintegration of flooring, tensile cracks...