Oedometer Behavior of an Artificial Cemented Highly Collapsible Soil

This study aims at investigating the mechanical behavior and the changes in fabric at various stages of loading and wetting of an artificial cemented highly collapsible geomaterial. The required metastable structure of a collapsible soil was produced by adding particles of expanded polystyrene to a soil-cement mixture. This technique is shown to reproduce main features inherently attributed to collapsible soils under idealized conditions where the effects of void ratio and degree of cementation can be properly isolated and accounted for. Collapse potential was evaluated on samples with and without cementation. From the observed behavior it was possible to identify the initial void ratio, cementation level, initial suction, and stress path as factors controlling the collapse potential of soils.