1/21/2019 Drained vs Undrained Loadings in Geotechnical Engineering

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Drained vs Undrained Loadings in

Geotechnical Engineering
Siva Sivakugan Follow
174 19 1

One thing that takes a while for the budding geotechs to digest is the difference between
undrained and drained parameters, and when to use what. Actually, it is simple and is common
sense. When a saturated clay is loaded, it will not let the water out immediately (i.e. remains
undrained) and that is when most of the failures occur. In the short-term, the clay can be treated as
an undrained homogeneous material where we will not separate the grains and water. Here, we
carry out the undrained analysis in terms of total stresses, using undrained shear strength cu (phi =
0).
In the long term (after some months or years), the clay will drain out some water until the excess
pore water pressure is fully dissipated and the pore water pressure is in equilibrium with the in situ
conditions. Now, it is prudent to carry out an effective stress analysis using c' and phi', where we
separate the stresses acting on the pore water (pore water pressure) and the grains (effective
stresses).
Undrained analysis is often much easier to carry out, inexpensive to get the design parameters, and
is necessary to assess the short-term stability which can be more critical than the long term stability.
For undrained loading, the failure envelope in terms of total stresses is horizontal and hence we only
need one parameter, undrained cohesion cu (phi = 0). Undrained cohesion can be derived from an
unconfined compression test, UU triaxial, vane shear test (lab or field) or simply using a pocket
penetrometer. Drained analysis needs c' and phi' which are derived from more expensive
consolidated drained or undrained triaxial tests or in situ tests (and estimated using correlations).
They are necessary when working with effective stresses. We generally charge A$1500-A$2000 for a
CD or CU triaxial test on three specimens at different confining pressures, while an unconfined
compression test costs less than A$100.
Granular soils drain very quickly, and hence they are always treated as drained and analysed in terms
of effective stresses using phi' (c'=0). For normally consolidated clays c' = 0. Even for other clays
(compacted or overconsolidated), c' is not very large and is in the order of 0-25 kPa. Danish code
suggests that c' can be taken as 0.1 cu.
In summary, short-term analysis is carried out in terms of total stresses, using undrained shear
strength parameters cu and phi = 0. Long-term analysis is carried out in terms of effective stresses,
using drained shear strength parameters c' and phi'.
See peak versus residual shear strengths.

Siva Sivakugan
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1/21/2019 Drained vs Undrained Loadings in Geotechnical Engineering

Edi Hartono 2mo in Join now

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C&S Manager at Mandai Park Developments Pte Ltd

yes both analysis should be carried out and reported accordingly when submitting to
authorities. In the past, I had a case whereby only one case is documented in the report
because the other one is not critical. The submission is delayed because the approving
officer wanted to see that check on both cases has been carried out.
Like Reply

marion mutwota 2mo

marion Technical Sales Engineer at Geotextiles East Africa Ltd
mutwota
Very informative!
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botan mohammed 2mo

botan water and environmental sanitation engineer at halabjagroup of comapnies
mohammed
dears... could you mention most useful software for designing foundation of structures.. 
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Muhammad Elfeky 11mo

Muhammad
Researcher at National Research Center
Elfeky
thank you
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Md Md Moheful Islam
11mo
Moheful Geotechnical Engineer at SMEC
Islam
Could you please specifically mention the exact Danish Code that we can use this one for
design as reference. For Example AS4678. Your cooperation will be highly appreciated.
Like Reply

Lorenzo Peve, EIT 12mo

Lorenzo Graduate Research Assistant at The University of Texas at Austin
Peve,
EIT Great explanation!
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