Collapsible soil can be defined as soil that is susceptible to a large and sudden reduction in volume upon wetting.

Collapsible soil usually has a low dry density and low moisture content. Such soil can withstand a large applied vertical stress with a small compression, but then experience much larger settlements after wetting, with no increase in vertical pressure. The category of collapsible soil would include the settlement of debris, uncontrolled fill, deep fill, or natural soil, such as alluvium or colluvium. The oedometer (also known as a consolidometer) is the primary laboratory equipment used to study the settlement behavior of soil. The oedometer test should only be performed on undisturbed soil specimens, or in the case of studies of fill behavior, on specimens compacted to anticipated field and moisture conditions. The oedometer (also known as a consolidometer) is the primary laboratory equipment used to study the settlement behavior of soil. The oedometer test should only be performed on undisturbed soil specimens, or in the case of studies of fill behavior, on specimens compacted to anticipated field and moisture conditions. Figures 6.20 and 6.21 present the results of a collapse test performed on a soil

specimen by using the laboratory oedometer equipment. The soil specimen was loaded in the oedometer to a vertical pressure of 144 kPa (3000 psf) and then inundated with distilled water. Figure 6.20 shows the load-settlement behavior of the soil specimen, and Fig. 6.21 shows the amount of vertical deformation (collapse) as a function of time after inundation. The percent collapse is defined as the change in height of the soil specimen after inundation divided by the initial height of the soil specimen. There are many different methods for dealing with collapsible soil. If there is a shallow deposit of natural collapsible soil, the deposit can be removed and recompacted during the grading of the site. In some cases, the soil can be densified (such as by compaction grouting) to reduce the collapse potential of the soil. Another method for dealing with collapsible soil is to flood the building footprint or force water into the collapsible soil stratum by using wells. As the wetting front moves through the ground, the collapsible soil will densify and reach an equilibrium state. Flooding or forcing water into collapsible soil should not be performed if there are adjacent buildings, due to the possibility of damaging these structures. Also, after the completion of the flooding process, subsurface exploration and laboratory testing should be performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the process. There are also foundation options that can be used for sites containing collapsible soil. A deep foundation system, which derives support from strata below the collapsible soil, could be constructed. Also, post-tensioned foundations or mat slabs can be designed and installed to resist the larger anticipated settlement from the collapsible soil. SOIL MECHANICS AND FOUNDATIONS Robert W. Day Chief Engineer, American Geotechnical P-55-56 This saturation eliminates the clay bonds holding the soil grains together

Human activities that facilitate soil collapse include: 1. Irrigation; 2. Water impoundment; 3. Watering the lawn; 4. Changing the natural drainage; and 5. Disposal of wastewater

The soil particles are originally loosely packed and barely touch each other before moisture soaks into the ground. As water is added to the soil in quantity and moves downward, the water wets the contacts between soil particles and allows them to slip past each other to become more tightly packed. Another term for collapsible soils is "hydrocompactive soils" because they compact after water is added. The addition of water to the naturally dry soil was caused by a septic tank, a leaky municipal water line, runoff from roads, and runoff from the roofs of the houses nearby The soils may be confirmed to be collapsible through engineering testing. These tests include study of seismic waves through the soils, rates of drilling through the soils (blow counts), and testing undisturbed soil samples obtained by careful drilling for compaction after wetting http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/geoscience/hazards/collabsible.html (1) Identification. Many collapsible soils are mudflow or windblown silt deposits of loess often found in arid or semiarid climates such as deserts, but dry climates are not necessary for collapsible soil. Typical collapsible soils are lightly colored, low in plasticity with LL < 45, PI < 25 and with relatively low densities between 65 and 105 lbs/ft3 (60 to 40 percent porosity). Collapse rarely occurs in soil with porosity less than 40 percent. (2) Potential Collapse. The potential for collapse should be determined from results of a consolidometer test as described in EM 1110-1-1904. The soil may then be modified as needed using soil improvement methods to reduce or eliminate the potential for collapse. 2-6. Soil Reinforcement. Soil reinforcement allows new construction to be placed in soils that were originally less than satisfactory. The bearing capacity of weak or soft soil may be substantially increased by placing various forms of reinforcement in the soil such as metal ties, strips, or grids, geotextile fabrics,or granular materials. a. Earth Reinforcement. Earth reinforcement consists of a bed of granular soil strengthened with horizontal layers of flat metal strips, ties, or grids of high tensile strength material that develop a good frictional bond with the soil. The bed of reinforced soil must intersect the expected slip paths of shear failure,

Figure 1-3a. The increase in bearing capacity is a function of the tensile load developed in any tie, breaking strength and pullout friction resistance of each tie and the stiffness of the soil and reinforcement materials. (1) An example calculation of the design of a reinforced slab is provided in Binquet and Lee (1975). (2) Slope stability package UTEXAS2 (Edris 1987) may be used to perform and nalysis of the bearing capacity of either the unreinforced or reinforced soil beneath a foundation. A small slope of about 1 degree must be used to allow the computer program to operate. The program will calculate the bearing capacity of the weakest slip path, Figure 1-3a, of infinite length (wall) footings, foundations, or embankments. b. Geotextile Horizontal Reinforcement. High strength geotextile fabrics placed on the surface under the proper conditions allow construction of embankments and other structures on soft foundation soils that normally will not otherwise support pedestrian traffic, vehicles, or conventional construction equipment. Without adequate soil reinforcement, the embankment may fail during or after construction by shallow or deep-seated sliding wedge or circular arc-type failures or by excessive subsidence caused by soil creep, consolidation or bearing capacity shear failure. Fabrics can contribute toward a solution to these problems. Refer to TM 5-800-08 for further information on analysis and design of embankment slope stability, embankment sliding, embankment spreading, embankment rotational displacement, and longitudinal fabric strength reinforcement. Loess deposits cover parts of the western, midwestern, and southern United States, Europe, South America, Asia including large areas of Russia and China, and Southern Africa. The amount of settlement depends on the initial void ratio, stress history of the soil, thickness of the collapsible soil layer, and magnitude of the applied foundation pressure.

Collapsible soils are widely distributed in most parts of the world (e.g. United States of America, Brazil, Egypt, Kuwait, South Africa and China) particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. These materials include aeolian or wind deposits, water deposits, residual soils and colluvial deposits. The soils contain minute pores and voids (sometimes visible without magnification), and soil particles may be partially supported by clay or silt, or chemically cemented with carbonates. When wetted, collapsible soils undergo a rearrangement of their grains and the water removes the cementing material, causing rapid, significant settlement Common causes of the wetting are surface infiltration (such as from irrigation or a leak), water ponded at the surface, or a rise in the groundwater table. 3. Testing & Identification Once the geotechnical engineer recognizes the possibility that collapsible soils are present, tests are sometimes done to quantify the collapse potential of the soils. If lab tests are to be performed, undisturbed samples must be obtained using Shelby tubes. Once undisturbed samples are collected, two types of tests are generally performed: (a) double oedometer tests; and (b) single odeometer tests. The oedometer, as you recall, is the apparatus in which dry or wet stresscontrolled confined compression or consolidation tests are performed on soil specimens. a. Double Oedometer Test In this test, two identical soil specimens are placed in oedometers and subjected to confined compression tests. One of the specimens is tested at natural insitu water content, which is generally quite low. The other specimen is fully saturated before the test begins, and then subjected to an identical compression test. Two stress versus strain curves will be generated, one for the dry soil and one for the saturated soil. If the soil is strongly hydro collapsible, the stress-strain response for the saturated curve will be significantly different than that of the dry soil (Figure 4). For a given applied stress n, the strain offset w between the two curves is called the hydro-collapse strain for that stress level. Generally, for the dry specimen, there will be a critical stress cr at which the loose structure breaks down and beyond which the two

curves converge. b. Single Oedometer Test

As the name implies, the single oedometer test uses only a single soil specimen. The procedure is as follows: 1) An undisturbed sample is placed in the oedometer at its natural (dry) moisture content. 2) A small seating load is applied to the specimen. 3) The soil is gradually loaded to the anticipated field loading conditions. 4) At this stress level, the sample is then inundated with water and allowed to saturate. The resulting hydro collapse is then observed. 5) Loading of the specimen is then continued with consolidation permitted. The characteristic stress versus strain curve generated from such a test is sketched in Fig. 5. Clearly, the larger the collapse strain w observed, the more collapsible the soil is considered to be. Collapse strains on the order of 1% are considered to be mild, while those on the order of say 30% are considered to be very severe.

Clevenger (1958) proposed a criterion based on dry density, that is, if the density is less than 1.28 Mg/m3, then the soil is liable to significant settlement. On the other hand, if the dry density is greater than 1.44 Mg/m3, then the amount of collapse should be small, while at intermediate densities the settlements are transitional. Gibbs and Bara (1962) based on natural dry density and liquid limit, which distinguishes between collapsible soils and non-collapsible soils as shown in Figure 2. The method is based on the premise that a soil, which has enough void space to hold its liquid limit moisture at saturation is susceptible to collapse on wetting. Figure 2 shows that soils above the lines are in a loose condition, and when fully saturated will have a moisture content greater than liquid limit. Handy (1973) suggested a criterion based on the ratio of liquid limit to saturation. If this ratio is less than 1, the soil is collapsible. However, if it is greater than 1, the soil is non-collapsible. Dudley (1970) reported that most of the collapsing soils have liquid limits below 45 % and plasticity indices below 25%. A collapse index (ic) involving natural moisture content (m), degree of saturation (Sr), plastic limit (PL) and plasticity index (PI) was proposed by Feda (1966). The collapse index was defined in the following formula

If the collapse index was greater than 0.85, then this was indicative of collapsible soils. Jennings and Knight (1975) suggested a guideline, which relates the type of soil, grain size distribution and the critical degree of saturation as given in Table 1.

According to the Soviet Building Code (Reznik 1989), soils are identified as collapsible if their degree of saturation is less than 0.8 and the values of the indicator CI are less than the ones shown in Table 2. The indicator CI is defined in the following formula

Where eL = void ratio at liquid limit, e = void ratio at natural moisture content.

Jennings and Knight (1975) suggested a procedure using the double-oedometer for determining collapse potential by taking an undisturbed specimen at natural moisture content and placing it in a consolidometer ring. The specimen is then progressively loaded up to a pressure of 200 kPa. At this pressure, the specimen is flooded with water and left for 24 hours, and the consolidation test is then carried on to its normal maximum loading limit. Figure 3 shows the stages of the collapse potential test. The collapse potential (CP) is then defined as:

where H is the change in height of the specimen upon flooding, Ho is the original height of the specimen, ec is the change in void ratio of the specimen upon flooding and eo is the void ratio before flooding. The collapse potential is only a guide to the collapse which may be encountered. They also suggested a classification of the potential severity of collapse based on the collapse potential as shown in Table 4, which classifies soils with collapse potential greater than 1% as metastable.

Field Tests Field tests are frequently used to identify collapsible soils. A very simple field test is the sausage test (Clemence and Finbarr 1981). A block of soil of about 500 cm3 is taken from the test trial pit and broken into two pieces, and each is trimmed until they are approximately equal in volume. One specimen is then wetted and molded in the hands to form a damp ball. The volume of this ball is then compared with the volume of the undisturbed specimen. If the wetted ball is obviously smaller, then collapse may be suspected. This test is only a guide as to whether or not a soil can collapse. Collapsible soils may also be determined in the field using the cone penetration test (CPT) results (Reznik 1989). Rollins et al. (1998) carried out CPT at six field locations in Nephi, Utah (USA) according to the ASTM D-3441-86. They found that the tip resistance (qc) of the soil at its natural moisture content (w = 7 % to 10 %) was typically between 3000 and 5000 kPa, but decreased to between 1,000 and 2,000 kPa for the wetter soil profile.

Collapsible soils type are in nature unsaturated soils, which are characterized by a metastable structure and undergo an abrupt collapse when they are flooded (with or without loading), which causes important damage. 3.3. ULTRASONIC TESTS The equipment (figure 5) includes an analyzer for measuring the velocity of ultrasonic waves, a calibration bar, a set of two transducers of 54 kHz with cables, acting differently as transmitter or receiver, and a paste pot of contact

This series of tests starts with the calibration of the analyzer, by measuring the transmission speed of the wave through the calibration bar. There is measured the velocity of an ultrasonic wave train, which crosses soil specimens, produced in the oedometric mould, according to the procedure of the compression tests. To guarantee a good transmission of the waves in the body of the specimen and before adjusting the system of measurement, thin layers of contact grease are applied to the two faces of the transducers (transmitter and receiver). On the screen of the analyzer there is represented the transit time or the speed of the wave, that according to the configuration of the analyzer.

The results of the ultrasonic tests show that ultrasonic speed varies, depending on the variation of the energy of compaction and/or moisture content (figures 13 and 14). For the same value of the energy of compaction, whatever the soil, the ultrasonic speed is increasing with the growth of the moisture content. A new experimental approach to the prediction of collapsible soils based on ultrasonic tests, easy and fast, is proposed. The results obtained depend on grain-size distribution, compactness of soil and water content. Ultrasonic speeds are limited as follows: V 400 m/s, collapse appears. V >1000 m/s, no risk of collapse. Between these two limits collapse can occur, it depends on water content and compactness.The possibility of using the cone penetrometer as identification means of the collapsible soils makes it possible to follow the evolution of collapse and to propose a limit penetration, separating the collapsible soils from the noncollapsible soils.

Abstract Soils that go through a great loss of volume upon wetting with or without additional loads are identified as collapsible. In recent years, there has been an increasing awareness of this type of soil due to the expansion of urban developments to arid regions. Also man-made earth structures often exhibit collapsing behavior when compacted at water content less than the optimum moisture content. In the literature, methods can be found to predict this behavior based on field and laboratories test results. These methods, however, are time consuming and developed for the type of soils tested. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on collapsible soils using the fall cone and the oedometer apparatuses. The fall cone method, originally developed to determine liquid and plastic limits of soils, was adopted in this investigation to identify its collapse potential. A cone penetration limit (Plim) is introduced to identify collapsible soil and a correlation between the collapse potential, CP, and the cone penetration, P, was developed and validated with the present experimental results and those available in the literature. Furthermore, a simple procedure is introduced to determine the optimum Proctor Moisture Content for collapsible soils from the results of the cone test. The proposed procedure is simple and fast to evaluate soil collapsibility by a single reading of the cone penetration. An oedometer test is a kind of geotechnical investigation performed in geotechnical engineering that measures a soil's consolidation properties. Oedometer tests are performed by applying different loads to a soil sample and measuring the deformation response. The results from these tests are used to predict how a soil in the field will deform in response to a change in effective stress.