This paper describes a newly developed apparatus for measuring the tensile strengthof compacted and pre-consolidated saturated soft to medium clayey soils. Thisapparatus is simple to use to perform a soil tensile strength. Two types of tensilemolds are described and results obtained from them are compared. Repeatability oftest results is also verified. Effects of water content, dry density, proportions ofparticle size and amount of fines present in the soil are also examined. Tensilestrength and unconfined compression test results are compared. It was found that theratio of unconfined compression strength (qu) to tensile strength (qt) for staticallycompacted Kanto loam soil is around 12.5. In case of compacted Kanto loam,maximum value of qt and qu is obtained around 50～60% of water content for all thesamples prepared at three different dry densities (ρd = 0.66, 0.68 and 0.7 g/cm3).Both types of strength decrease on wet and dry sides of this maximum value.In case of mixtures of NSF clay, silt and sand in different proportions, it is observedthat with the increase in the amount of finer particles, both qt and qu increase. Butwith the increase in the size of finer particles, reduction in the strengths is observed.In case of pre-consolidated saturated NSF clay, tensile and unconfined compressiontests are performed. Saturated NSF clay samples are prepared under the preconsolidationstresses of 100, 200 and 300 kPa. The ratio of strength (qu/qt) obtained for this saturated NSF clay is around 6.
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