A probabilistic solid-porous model to determine the shear strength of unsaturated soils

A probabilistic solid-porous model has been developed to determine the shear strength of unsaturated soils. The probabilistic model was built by analyzing the probability of a certain pore or group of pores of a network to fill or remain filled with water during a wetting or drying process, respectively. This model is used to determine the equivalent stress which represents the stress supported by the solid skeleton of an unsaturated soil and is related to the strength of the material. The probabilistic model is an alternative to the use of computational models and shows some important advantages. The theoretical results of the model are compared with a series of triaxial tests performed at constant suction and constant volume. These comparisons demonstrate that this model is adequate to establish the strength of unsaturated materials.