Two-scale investigation of the retention behavior of a well-graded mixed soil

The hydraulic characterization of mixed compacted soils is helpful for the design of earthworks subjected to drying–wetting cycles. When the mixed soil is well-graded and made of both coarse and fine fractions, its matric suction may also be due to the short-range adsorption phenomena, as for the soil investigated in this research work. A silty–clayey sand was created by a mixing procedure and experimentally investigated at two different scales. Physical modeling of an infiltration process was performed, allowing an inverse numerical analysis to infer the water retention and the hydraulic conductivity functions of the soil, whereas element testing on soil specimens allowed direct determination of the same equations. In the article, problems related to the employed suction measurement techniques have been pointed out and discussed. By this two-scale combined strategy, features of the soil hydraulic behavior, such as the wetting collapse, the shrinkage during drying, and the loop of hysteresis, were also determined.