Soil behavior at the grain scale and its effect on macro scale

The objective of this study is to investigate soil behavior while taking into consideration its shape characteristics, and establishing a relationship between these characteristics and macro problems of soil. One of the key problems that will be looked at within the scope of this thesis is slope stability. When considering stability of slopes, the contribution of, if any, shape and size parameters to the calculation of shear strength of soils is not addressed in the literature. One may think that the reason for the absence of this particular topic in the literature could be that in slope stability, factor of safety generally provides us with enough safe room, leaving any further analysis especially anything that concerns micro mechanics of soil redundant. However, we argue that studying slope stability using only the continuum theories may not always be sufficient and that it could not allow us to leverage the full potential of strength of soil in our engineering designs. In soil mechanics, there are always many unknowns and even in slope stability there are still many topics yet to be researched. The brief literature review shows that micro mechanics of soil can have a significant effect on overall soil behavior. Although this study will be concerned with cohesion-less soils, we believe that it is still another step into understanding soil behavior in the context of slope stability.