Expansive Clay Soils and Vegetative Influences on Shallow Foundations

This proceedings is a collection of 14 papers discussing the effects of trees and moisture movements on various lightly loaded foundations on expansive clays. These papers were presented at the Geo-Institute Shallow Foundation and Soil Properties Committee Sessions at the ASCE Annual Convention held in Houston, Texas, October 10-14, 2001. These sessions provided a forum to review current state-of-the-practice in foundation design, maintenance, and remediation as it relates to vegetative effects and expansive clays on foundations. Topics include tree root damage to buildings; predicting volume changes in expansive soils due to environmental factors including vegetation, drought, expansive clay soil problems and solutions throughout the world; soil-structure interaction; field test program to obtain geotechnical properties; depth of wetting and active zone in expansive soils; slabs on expansive clay with vegetation considerations; volume change coefficient of expansive clay; in-situ modification of active clays for shallow foundation remediation; cracking of pavement due to drying shrinkage; soil suction measurements; and data base on under-slab moisture contents in Texas.