Résumé
This paper focuses on the collapse of granular materials subjected to wetting action. For soils, the collapse potential depends on several parameters such as liquid limit, matric suction, compactness, initial water content and the amount of fine particles. The effect of grain size, which plays a key role in the rearrangement of grains, remains little studied and poorly understood. To investigate the capillary origin of the collapse phenomenon, we present an experimental study on macroscopic and local scales. Our results show the effect of grain size and water content on collapse.