DETERMINATION OF SOIL STRENGTH PARAMETERS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY SLOPE FAILURES

Laboratory tests have been carried out on many of the plastic clays from South East England which have given rise to highway earthwork slope failures. These included routine and special low-stress triaxial tests on tubed and reconstituted samples; in the special tests, the samples were brought to failure along stress paths similar to those expected in the field. The tests gave values for the peak and critical strengths of the soils. The results indicated that the stability of the shallow slips was controlled by the critical or fully softened friction angle. For the covering abstract see IRRD 877809.