Crack spacing of unsaturated soils in the critical state

The cracking mechanism of unsaturated soils due to evaporation is poorly understood, and the magnitude of crack spacing is usually hard to estimate. In this work, cracks were postulated to occur succedently rather than simultaneously, that is, secondary cracks appear after primary cracks as evaporation continues. Formulae of the secondary crack spacing and secondary trend crack spacing were then derived after stress analysis. The calculated spacing values were consistent with the published experimental data. Meanwhile, the effect of the Poisson ratio on the crack spacing was analyzed, which showed that the magnitude of crack spacing was proportional to the Poisson ratio in the range of 0.30, 0.35]. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50709015), China Postdoctoral Science Special Foundation (Grant No. 200801081), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 20070410531) and National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2007CB714100)