Traditional studies on soil strength are mainly concerned with the soils subjected to the compressive shear stress state

and only a few addressed the strength characteristics of soils subjected to uniaxial tension

triaxial tension or combinations of tenso-shear. Based on the analysis of the existing results

a tenso-shear coupling strength model is developed with considering various combinations of tenso-shear in saturated clay. The failure envelope and the peak strength line as well as the strength under multidirectional tension are analyzed

and the corresponding strength formulations with specific derivation process are obtained. Different types of saturated clay are selected for the uniaxial tensile test

direct shear test and triaxial shear test. It is shown that the proposed model performs very well. Due to the complete theoretical basis and simpler strength formulation

the proposed strength model can be conveniently applied in practice

yielding better results in understanding and analyzing the behavior of saturated soils subjected to combinations of tenso-shear

such as slope instability caused by rainfall infiltration or earthquake loading.