THEORY OF SOIL FAILURE AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE

PRINCIPLE STRESSES, COHESION AND ANGLE OF SHEARING RESISTANCE

AT THE POINT OF INCIPIENT SOIL FAILURE

SOIL FAILURE:

Soil is a three-dimensional natural and dynamic body covering the Earth’s

surface in a thin layer, synthesized in profile form from weathered and weathering
mineral matter and decomposed and decomposing organic matter, which when
adequately supplied with air and water, provides mechanical support, and in part,
sustenance for plants growth. A soil refers to the entire three dimensional body of
material with all its chemical, physical, and biological properties.

When the shear stresses in the soil exceeds the shear strength of the soil, the
soil fails. This failure of soil under the action of shear stress and shear strength is
referred as soil failure.
RESPONSE OF SOIL TO SHEARING FORCES:

Shear strength of soil is defined as the resistance offered by soil grain against the
shear deformation. A soil may derive its shear strength from the following
parameters:

1. Interlocking between molecules

2. Friction between particles

3. Intermolecular attraction (COHESION)

Coarse grained soil derive their strength from interlocking and friction whereas fine
grained soil derive their strength from friction and cohesion. Pure clay derive their
strength only from cohesion.

• In dense sand interlocking resistance may be 20 – 25% of total resistance

• On failure of interlocking 20 – 25% loss in strength is recorded
• Interlocking breaks at 4 - 6% of strain.
MODES OF FAILURE OF SOIL:

1. SHEAR FAILURE:

To graphically describe a state of stress, Mohr's circle provides an elegant

representation in two dimensions. Jaeger has reviewed Mohr's work to show how the
two-dimensional idea has been generalized to three dimensions. The concept in
three dimensions is to describe the normal and shearing components of the stress
vector that acts on all possible planes passing through a point. While the
mathematical derivation of this representation is too involved to present here, the
description simplifies to plotting in two dimensions the magnitude of the normal
component against the magnitude of the shear component. The plot of all such
points for a particular stress state will cover some specific area. The shape of the
desired area can be described if the principal stresses are known. Arranging the
principal stresses so that σ I represents the algebraically largest principal stress and
σ III represents the algebraically smallest principal stress, three circles can be
constructed.

FIG: A two-dimensional representation of a stress state in which the shaded

area represents the stress vector on all possible planes at the point.
The cross-hatched area represents the desired area to describe the stress state.
Note that if any two of the principal stresses are equal, the three circles become one
and the area becomes the circumference of one circle; the one circle is Mohr's
representation in two dimensions. Maximum shearing stress, largest principal stress,
and other stresses can be easily obtained from the graphical representation of the
state of stress. Failure by shear has a clear meaning for brittle materials. The
classical example is the brittle-type shear fracture that develops when a solid
cylinder of material is loaded in compression. This type of failure is also observed in
soil. A similar type of failure is observed in some soil conditions where no definite
fracture occurs but where the diameter of the specimen under test gradually
increases with load. The stress state that causes fracture or incipient plastic now—
that is, larger diameter and hence permanent deformation is a measure of shear
failure. The definition of failure by shear is thus some function of the stress state that
just causes the failure. In soil, both complete fracture and incipient plastic flow have
generally been indicated by the same stress function. A review of shear by Jaeger
indicates that the first theory to predict shear failure dates back to Coulomb. He
proposed that failure occurs when the maximum shear stress reaches some critical
value. This value by our terms of reference would be a dynamic property of the
material. Navier, as reviewed by Jaeger, modified the maximum shear stress theory
to a form that qualitatively fits more facts than the original Coulomb theory. Navier
proposed that shear failure occurs on a plane where the shear stress reaches some
constant to that is increased by a constant factor /x times the normal stress σ
(compressive) acting on the plane. If σ is defined as positive when compressive (the
normal procedure for soils), the criterion becomes

|τ|=τ 0 + μσ

Where, |τ| indicates the absolute value of the shearing stress to cause failure. There
are two possible planes of failure at each stress state where σ and τ have the same
absolute magnitude but T has a different algebraic sign. In reality the sign is
immaterial with regard to actual behaviour since the sign indicates the direction of
failure but does not change the condition for failure.
SHEAR FAILURE OF SOIL WHILE PLOUGHING:

• The soil is loaded by predominantly compressive stresses (passive pressures)

as the cutting blade advances.

• Failure occurs when the applied load becomes sufficient to overcome the
shearing strength of the soil.

• A block of soil, having a logarithmic spiral shape, is separated and slides

forwards and upwards over the undisturbed soil and the blade surface.

• With further movement of the blade, the process is repeated until another
block of soil is sheared off.

2. TENSILE FAILURE:

Failure by tension has the same meaning in soil as in metal. Expressing tension
failure in precise terms is difficult because of the porosity of soil. The problem is to
describe the area over which the force acts. The total area (air, solid material, and
water), the area of solid material and water, and the area of only solid material have
all been used for this purpose. Using any area other than total area is an attempt to
incorporate behaviour explained from a granular model into the mathematical model
of the continuum. As pointed out earlier, this technique is not inconsistent and does
not violate either model. The area to use should be the one that results in the best
representation of tension failure.

The Mohr envelope of stresses also indicates tensile stresses. Along the ordinate,
stresses to the left of the abscissas are tensile stresses and those to the right are
compressive. Willetts has constructed the locus of shearing stress r from a
combination of measured values of tensile and compressive stress loadings that
were imposed to cause soil failure. When uniaxial tensile stress is applied to cause
soil failure in a rigid body system, there should be no shearing stress. When soil
does not act as a rigid body, the behaviour induces shearing stresses. Accordingly, a
shearing stress τ will accompany each tensile stress σ . Vomocil and Waldron have
studied Mohr relations in which the shearing stress was less than τ 0. In this case,
the magnitude of the shearing stress may be calculated from the ratio of the negative
major to minor principal stresses and the angle of internal friction.

Direct tension is seldom applied to soil by a tillage tool or traction device. Tension
failure does have physical significance, however, and may sometimes be induced
during soil manipulation. Although soil is often thought to be incapable of sustaining
a tensile force, its tensile strength may be very high.

TENSILE FAILURE OF SOIL WHILE PLOGHING:

• In this failure, the soil splits ahead of the cutting edge of the blade and a crack
is propagated.

• The crack rapidly extends until it intersects the soil surface thus separating a
clod.
 3. PLASTIC FLOW FAILURE:

The phenomenon of plastic flow in soil has never been clearly defined. One example
of the action termed plastic flow is observed when a subsoiler moves through a wet
clay. Instead of shattering and developing shear failure surfaces, the soil flows
around the subsoiler and remains essentially a continuous mass with only a
cleavage plane where the subsoiler has passed. For this action to occur, presumably
the soil must fail in shear so that it can deform i.e., strain but no clearly defined
failure surface develops. Rather, the entire mass in the immediate neighbourhood of
the applied forces fails by shear but does not strain to the degree that complete
separation occurs at any point in the mass.

PLASTIC FLOW FAILURE OF SOIL WHILE PLOUGHING:

• When the shear failure changes to flow failure as the implement speed is
increased.

• In flow failure, no distinct planes of shear are evident but there is a general
strain of the entire soil mass.

• In practice, plastic flow mainly occurs for tine implements working below
critical depth.

• The critical depth is dependent on soil conditions, tine width and rake angle.

• Under given soil conditions, the wider the tine, the smaller its rake angle, and
the looser the soil surface, and the greater the critical depth.
 4. CRESCENT FAILURE:

• Below certain working depths soil movement changes from a pre-dominantly

forward and upward form to mainly forward and sideways one, this depth is
known as critical depth and the failure above this is called as crescent failure.

• The value of critical depth increases with decrease in the rake angle.

MOHR-COULOMB THEORY OF SOIL FAILURE:

This theory states that a material fails because of critical combination of normal and
shear stress and not from either maximum normal or shear stress alone. The soil
fails when the shear strength on the failure plane at failure is a unique function of
normal stress acting on that plane.

τ f =c+ σ tan ∅
According to Mohr-coulomb failure criterion the failure of material occurs when the
Mohr circle of stresses touches the Mohr envelope.

LIMITATIONS OF MOHR-COULOMB THEORY:

1. Analysis by Mohr-coulomb is done by taking 2-dimensional stress condition

whereas the actual loading in the field is 3-dimensional.
2. The failure envelope is approached to straight line whereas for over-
consolidated soil it may little curve.
3. In original theory considers total stress parameter (pore pressure effect was
ignored). However, in modified theory effective parameter are used.