Verification of Tensile Strength of Lightly Cemented Sand

There are many methods of determining the tensile strength of soil. Depending on whether the specimen can be directly pulled in tension, it can be categorized into direct and indirect methods. In the direct methods, the specimen can be horizontally or vertically loaded. In the indirect methods, the split tensile test and the unconfined penetration test (double punch test) are often used.
In this study, compacted clayed sandy specimens (with 80% of sand and 20% of caly by weight) were prepared for a series of the tests. The first part of tests is related to the indirect test of soil tensile strength, including direct shear test, unconfined compression test, and unconfined penetration test. The second part of tests is related to the direct test of soil tensile strength, including direct tension test and pressure plate test.
The direct tension test of the effective stress varies slightly at different water contents, indicating the effective tensile strength of unsaturated soil was unaffected by the water contents. The direct tension test of the effective stress is quite close when the water content is at 9 and 11 percent, which suggests that the direct tension test be quite accurate in determining the tensile strength of lightly cemented sand.