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A relationship describing the shear-strength profile of a desiccating soil deposit is essential for the purpose of analysis, especially when a numerical method is adopted where each zone in a discretised grid is assigned an elevation-dependent shear-strength value. The matric-suction profile of a desiccating soil deposit is nonlinear. Up to the air-entry value, an increase in matric suction is associated with a linear increase in shear strength. Beyond air entry, as the soil starts to desaturate, a nonlinear increase in shear strength occurs. The soil-water characteristic curve is stress dependent, as is the shear-strength gain as matric suction increases. In this paper, a three-dimensional, nonlinear regression analysis showed that a power-additive function is suitable to describe the variation of the shear strength of unsaturated soils with matric suction. The proposed function incorporates the effect of normal stress on the contribution of matric suction to the shear strength.Key words: air-entry value, matric suction, nonlinear regression, soil-water characteristic curve, tailings, unsaturated shear strength.

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