Adhesion in geotechnical engineering is the interaction between cohesive soil and a solid surface which can cause clogging in mechanized tunnelling through clayey formations. Normal piston pull out and modified direct shear tests were performed on clayey soil samples to determine which type of adhesion stress, normal or tangential, could be most effectively measured. Measured values for normal adhesion ranged from 0.9 to 18 kPa. The range of tangential adhesion was 2.4 to 10 kPa. The results indicate normal adhesion results were more accurate than those for the modified direct shear test that measure tangential adhesion. Direct shear test on identical samples did not show any correlation between measured cohesion and normal adhesion values. Normal adhesion values have shown significantly meaningful variation with consistency index and so are compatible with the base of field clogging assessment criteria. But tangential adhesion and cohesion were not compatible with these assessment criteria.

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