A grain silo, which is a very heavy structure, was recently built on a saturated clay. Because the harvest season was fairly short and intense, the silo was completely loaded with grain fairly quickly (i.e., within a couple of weeks). This is the first time the silo has been loaded. The grain weighs about twice as much as the empty silo. The weight of this grain, along with the weight of the silo, have induced both compressive and shear stresses in the soil below.

Suddenly, someone has become concerned that the soil may be about to fail in shear under the weight of the silo and the grain. This is a legitimate concem, because such failures have occurred before. Discuss the soil mechanics aspects of this situation and determine whether the risk of failure in the soil is increasing, decreasing, or remaining constant with time.