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The angle of repose—the maximum angle that allows a heap of soil to remain stable without failing—is an important property of soils and affects the safety and costs of projects such as slopes or retaining walls. But several methods have been proposed to measure it, which might produce confusion in practice and research. The angles of repose obtained using six different methods for six different sands are compared here in order to quantify and explain the differences and determine some of the factors that influence the angle’s value. The results show that the highest values are obtained with the ASTM International and Cornforth methods, followed by scoop deposition (6 % smaller), the Santamarina and Cho dry method (12 % smaller), and the cone lifting method (35 % smaller). Both the cone lifting method and the Santamarina and Cho wet method produce segregation of the finer particles for sands having a specific gravity greater than 2.7 and a difference of extreme void ratios larger than 0.3.

Pull-out test data are reported for two textured, planar inclusions embedded in sand. Comparison of measured and back-calculated values of pull-out resistance, and also of the lateral stress on the front wall of the box due to pull-out, support the belief that a plane strain condition prevails at large displacement. The study demonstrates that it is important to account for stress dependency of the friction angle in analysis of tests performed at a normal effective stress less than 50 kPa.

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