collapsible soils definition
Definition. A collapsible soil is also known as loess. It is basically a clayey silt with a metastable structure. Collapsible soil shows high strength and stiffness at normal water content conditions. On the other hand upon wetting it suffers a sudden plastic deformation, i.e. collapse, which could be severe in some cases. This leads to serious engineering problems if not taken into consideration during the design phase.