Drained and Undrained Conditions

�
Drained condition
occurs when there is no changein pore water pressure due to external loading.�In a
drained condition, the pore water can drain outof the soil easily, causing
volumetric strains in thesoil.�
Well-drained soil is that which allows water to percolate through it reasonably
quickly and not pool.

Undrained condition
occurs when the pore wateris unable to drain out of the soil.�In an undrained
condition, the rate of loading ismuch quicker than the rate at which the pore
wateris able to drain out of the soil.�As a result, most of the external loading is
taken bythe pore water, resulting in an increase in the porewater pressure.�The
tendency of soil to change volume is suppressedduring undrained loading.
Undrained soil condition is when the soil is full with clay and therefore can't
drain properly.

4.8 SURCHARGE LOADS

A surcharge load is any load which is imposed upon the surface of the soil close
enough to the
excavation to cause a lateral pressure to act on the system in addition to the
basic earth pressure.
Groundwater will also cause an additional pressure, but it is not a surcharge load.
Examples of surcharge loads are spoil embankments adjacent to the trench, streets
or highways,
construction machinery or material stockpiles, adjacent buildings or structures,
and railroads.

COHESIVE SOIL
cohesive soils are those soils where the attraction between the soil particles is
very high such as in clay.
non-cohesive soils are those soils where there is no firm attraction between the
soil particles.

Cohesive soil: A sticky soil, such as clay or silt; its shear strength equals about
half its unconfined compressive strength.

Non-cohesive soil: loose, sandy material which does not bond together very well.

Therefore, cohesive soil is a better foundation than that of non-cohesive.

UNDRAINED SHEAR STRENGTH

s1 - s3 = 2 Su

Where:

s1 is the major principal stress

s3 is the minor principal stress

\tau is the shear strength (s1 - s3)/2

hence, \tau = Su (or sometimes cu), the undrained strength.

It is commonly adopted in limit equilibrium analyses where the rate of loading is
very much greater than the rate at which pore water pressures, that are generated
due to the action of shearing the soil, may dissipate. An example of this is rapid
loading of sands during an earthquake, or the failure of a clay slope during heavy
rain, and applies to most failures that occur during construction.

As an implication of undrained condition, no elastic volumetric strains occur, and

thus Poisson's ratio is assumed to remain 0.5 throughout shearing. The Tresca soil
model also assumes no plastic volumetric strains occur. This is of significance in
more advanced analyses such as in finite element analysis. In these advanced
analysis methods, soil models other than Tresca may be used to model the undrained
condition including Mohr-Coulomb and critical state soil models such as the
modified Cam-clay model, provided Poisson's ratio is maintained at 0.5.