Analysis of the internal stability of granular soils using different methods

The knowledge of the internal stability of granular soils is a key factor in the design of granular or geotextile filters. To evaluate the internal stability of granular soils, different semi-empirical methods are generally used. Nevertheless, the results of these methods, on the same soil, can lead to different internal stability evaluations. In this paper, to evaluate the reliability of the semi-empirical methods available in literature, the internal stability of different granular soils, reconstituted by the authors and by other researchers, has been studied by means of theoretical and experimental approaches. In particular, the theoretical analysis of the internal stability was performed using theSimulfiltrmethod, developed recently by the authors, while the experimental evaluation of the internal stability was carried out by means of long-term filtration tests. The comparison of the internal stability analysis performed by means of semi-empirical, theoretical, and experimental methods showed that the semi-empirical methods are not always reliable. Therefore, on the base of these results, a new chart, in terms of minimum slope Smin(%) of the grain-size distribution and of average value of finer percentageF, has been proposed to evaluate the internal stability of granular soils.