Geotechnical Behaviour of Fine-Grained Transition Soils in Landslides (Loja, Ecuador): The Need to Improve USCS Classification

Abstract:

Numerous landslides, either natural or produced by excavations in road works, occur in the intramontane Neogene Loja basin (southern Ecuadorian Andes) and can be associated with the ML characteristics of fine-grained soils belonging to the San Cayetano formation. Thirty-two undisturbed samples from eight sites were tested in laboratory to characterize the stress-strain geotechnical soil response, evidencing a higher internal friction angle and higher cohesion with respect to the standard ML soil values. A testing profile of a road made with these soils has been modelled using finite element methods to calculate both the safety factor and the mechanism of evolution. Anomalous behaviour is evidenced when a standard ML soil type is considered in the model, with a higher security factor than the less stable and more susceptible San Cayetano ML soils. Therefore, a review of the USCS soil unified system is necessary, to include this new type of soil.

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