Estimation of the shear strength of a coarse soil with high fines content by parallel gradation method

Abstract

The determination of the mechanical properties of soils containing particles larger than the allowable size of standard laboratory equipments is complex. It is indeed necessary to remove the coarsest fraction to carry out the tests. This scalping poses a problem of reliability of the results at the scale of the structure. Parallel gradation is the method commonly used for estimating the shear strength of heterogeneous granular soils from tests on their finer fraction. However, the effect of high fines content on the estimation of shear strength by this method is not well understood. The results of this study show that the parallel gradation method can predict the friction angle of the initial soil with high fines content when the modelled soil has a similar skeleton as the initial soil. However, the cohesion of the initial soil is overestimated.