Soil is fundamentally a multi-phase material – consisting of solid particles, water and air. In soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering it is widely treated as an elastic, elastoplastic or visco-elastoplastic material, and consequently regarded as a continuum body.

However, this book explores an alternative approach, considering soil as a multi-phase and discrete material and applying basic Newtonian mechanics rather than analytical mechanics. It applies microscopic models to the solid phase and fluid phases, and then introduces probability theory and statistics to derive average physical quantities which correspond to the soil‘s macroscopic physical properties such as void ratio and water content.

This book is particularly focused on the mechanical behaviour of dry, partially saturated and full saturated sandy soil, as much of the physicochemical microscopic characteristic of clayey soil is still not clear. It explores the inter-particle forces at the point of contact of soil particles and the resultant inter-particle stresses, instead of the total stress and effective stress which are studied in mainstream soil mechanics. Deformation and strength behaviour, soil-water characteristic curves, and permeability coefficients of water and air are then derived simply from grain size distribution, soil particle density, void ratio and water content.

A useful reference for consultants, professional engineers, researchers and public sector organisations involved in unsaturated soil tests. Advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students on Unsaturated Soil Mechanics courses will also find it a valuable text to study.