An equation to account for the shear strength of unsaturated soils is proposed in this paper. This equation is defined as the equivalent stress, and is an extension of Murray's equation. This approach applies to the general case of bi-modal structured soils showing a macrostructure and microstructure. The theoretical development considers the existence of a dry fraction in addition to the saturated and unsaturated fractions of the soil. These different fractions are included in a porous model, which allows an evaluation of the parameters of the equivalent stress equation. Finally, the paper includes a comparison between theoretical and experimental results. The comparison shows that the proposed equation can be used to estimate the shear strength of unsaturated soils.
