Experimental and Applied Modeling of Unsaturated Soils, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 202

Geotechnical and civil engineers all over the world continue to face problems with a wide range of geosystems involving materials that remain under partially saturated conditions throughout the year. The lack of education and training among engineering graduates and practitioners to properly deal with unsaturated soil conditions has resulted in faulty or excessively conservative designs, frequent construction delays, and deficient long-term performance of built infrastructure. Over the last few decades, however, the discipline of unsaturated soil mechanics has begun to receive increasing attention worldwide, providing better explanations for soil behavioral patterns than conventional saturated soil mechanics. Experimental and Applied Modeling of Unsaturated Soils contains 28 papers examining the most current thinking and practices involving unsaturated soils. This Geotechnical Special Publication is divided into two broad categories, General Characterization and Constitutive Behavior and Applied Modeling and Analysis. The papers in this publication were presented during the GeoShanghai 2010 International Conference held in Shanghai, China, June 3-5, 2010.