Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), NSF NHERI 2024: Tensile Behavior of Unsaturated Soil via Beam Bending Tests

This project investigates the tensile behavior of unsaturated compacted soil using a three-point beam bending test. This approach aims to evaluate the tensile strength of soil, which is important for understanding crack propagation in levees and earthen dams due to fault movements, particularly vertical fault displacement. The calculated stress-strain data can be used to inform numerical and physical models that predict soil behavior under tensile stress conditions. This experiment is one of the few that experimentally evaluates the tensile behavior of soil, an aspect often overlooked in conventional testing that primarily focuses on shear and compressive strength. The main audiences are engineers and other geotechnical engineering researchers.