When you apply a load on ground, there will be a stress field develops in the soil underneath the ground. The effective stress in this stress field means;

Question

When you apply a load on ground, there will be a stress field develops in the soil underneath the ground. The effective stress in this stress field means;

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The provided data for this question is incomplete: there are no answer options listed to evaluate. Nevertheless, I will restate and examine the concept involved to guide understanding.

Restating the core idea: when a load is applied to the ground, a stress field develops in the soil beneath, and the effective stress is the stress carried by the soil skeleton after accounting for pore water pressure. In geotechnical terms, this is described by sigma' = sigma - u, where sigma is the total stress and u is the pore water pressure.

If we consider the option that says, "Stress develops at the inter-particle contact points":
- This statement touches an important physical aspect: the transmission of load in a granular soil occurs primarily through contact forces at grain-to-grain interfaces. The inter-particle contacts are where contact stresses in the soil skeleton are actually carried as grains press against each other.
- However, describing effective stress solely as the stress at inter-particle contact points is an oversimplification. Effective stress is a continuum concept representing the average stress within the soil skeleton that causes deformation and shear resistance, not simply a pointwise stress value at discrete contacts.
- Moreover, effective stress explicitly accounts for pore water pressure. Even if contact stresses exist at grain contacts, the effective stress should reflect the net stress carried by the soil skeleton after subtracting pore pressure. Thus, saying the effective stress equals the stress at inter-particle contacts omits the role of the fluid phase and the averaging nature of the concept.

In summary, while inter-particle contact stresses are a real and important part of how load is transmitted in a soil skeleton, the effective stress concept is broader: it is the stress within the soil skeleton (total stress minus pore water pressure) that governs deformation and strength, and it is not strictly defined only as the stress at individual contact points.

If you have the full set of answer options, we could precisely map this explanation to the correct choice and contrast it with the others. The key ideas to look for in options are: (1) inclusion of pore water pressure (u) in calculating effective stress, (2) interpretation as a continuum/average stress in the soil skeleton rather than a single contact-point value, and (3) acknowledgment that load transfer occurs through grain contacts but under the framework of sigma' = sigma - u.

ENEN20002_2025_SM1 Quiz on Lecture 32 material

When you apply a load on ground, there will be a stress field develops in the soil underneath the ground. The effective stress in this stress field means;

View Explanation

Log in for full answers

Similar Questions

For a soil element located at a depth, z = 5 m underneath the ground surface, determine the vertical effective stress if: the soil saturated unit weight, gsat = 20 kN/m3 the water table is located at the ground surface Ko = 0.5 Hint: take unit weight of water gw = 10 kN/m3

In a consumer society, many adults channel creativity into buying things

Economic stress and unpredictable times have resulted in a booming industry for self-help products

People born without creativity never can develop it

A product has a selling price of $20, a contribution margin ratio of 40% and fixed cost of $120,000. To make a profit of $30,000. The number of units that must be sold is: Type the number without $ and a comma. Eg: 20000

Which of the following statement regarding cost is correct:

Under the assumptions used in cost-volume-profit analysis, as the activity increases:

More Practical Tools for Students Powered by AI Study Helper

Homework AI Solver

Stylized AI Paper Writer

Plagiarism Checker Assistant

Citation AI Academic Writing Tool

In-Class Translation Assistant

AI Note Generator

AI Quiz Answers

Past Exam Questions from University Test Bank

Smart Practice Assistant

Adaptive Practice

Making Your Study Simpler