Thank you for your reply.
On your second point, I agree with you. A clay might be saturated due to the suction by capillarity.
I have some doubts about your first point. The undrained shear strength is defined in the total stress approach. Accordingly , the submerged unit weight should be used...
Hi there,
Could you explain why in the criteria to obtain the ultimate lateral bearing capacity for soft clay for API p-y curve a effective unit weight and not a total unit weight is needed?
Indeed, the criteria is:
pu=3*Cu+gamma*z+J*Cu*z/D
where:
Cu = undrained shear strength
gamma=effective...
