Tensile strength of compacted cohesive soils

The ppaer deals with an experimental investigation carried out in order to evaluate some factors influencing the tensile strength of cohesive soils. Split-tensile and double-punch tests were performed and their results compared. Three base soils were used, a medium graded sand, a medium plasticity kaolin and a high plasticity bentonite. The tested samples were reconstructed by mixing the base soils with different percentage to give soils of variable plasticity and by compaction according to standard AASHTO procedure. Correlations among tensile strength, unconfined compressive strength, water content and plasticity index of compacted samples were investigated.