| Abstract: | The soils engineer, unlike the structural engineer who works with steel or other elastic homogeneous materials, is faced with the problem of predicting the behavior of a material that has many complex properties. Soils are inelastic, heterogeneous and contain many variable constituents. Perhaps among the many different soil types, swelling clays have been the most perplexing for the soils engineer. His approach to the problem has been one of performing physical laboratory tests, observing performance under field conditions, and, from this, predicting how similar soils possessing the same properties will behave. Predictions are usually based on observance and experience and seldom on a real quantitative understanding of the interparticle relationship. ... |
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