Abstract

This research was aimed to investigate the effect of densification on the shear strength of the Simbal Landslide,which was triggered by intense rainfall in October, 2005 along the M2 Lahore Islamabad Motorway in Pakistan.Subsurface ssamples were extracted from the zone close to the basal rupture surface to allow assessment of themobilized shear strength. Basic field and laboratory tests were conducted on remolded samples to ascertain thefundamental engineering properties of the landslide material. These included unconfined compression teststriaxial tests, and direct shear tests performed on samples of varying density and moisture content. Comparisonswere made between degree of saturation and cohesion and internal friction which revealed that at low watercontents the shear strength initially increases then decreases for all dry densities. This initial increase may be dueto the development of apparent cohesion in the clay particles present in soil-rock mixture. The overall resultssuggest that the that the shear strength parameters increase with increasing dry density, and that noticeable lossof strength occurs as the soil mixture approaches saturation, independent of density.

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