Deformation Properties

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Two major reasons for soil to deform are mechanical loading and environmental changes. Deformations due to loading are governed by an appropriate stress-strain curve of the soil, and deformations due to environmental changes by corresponding constitutive relationships. There are several ways to quantify the deformation characteristics of a soil. One of the simplest is through a modulus of deformation. This chapter describes the main state parameters influencing soil moduli. The state factors include particle packing and organization, water content, past stress history, and cementation. The modulus is useful in many fields of geotechnical engineering, but the modulus required for one field may be significantly different from the modulus for another field. One of the tools with which one can measure a soil modulus in situ is the pressuremeter (PMT). The chapter talks about deformations due to changes in water content or water tension in soils that are not collapsible soils.