Time-Dependent Deformation of Dredged Harbor Mud Used as Backfilling Material
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 4
Abstract
Dredged harbor mud is being increasingly used as backfilling and construction material in harbor development or reorganization to gain financial and operative advantages compared to disposal or ex situ treatment of the often contaminated material. However, the suitability of such soft organic sediments as construction material is unclear. This study presents geotechnical parameters for describing the one-dimensional consolidation based on large-scale long-term and standard oedometer tests using organic harbor mud from the Osthafen (East Harbor) reorganization project in Bremerhaven, Germany. Determined compression indices are in the range of peat, whereas the water permeabilities resemble those of clay. The coefficients of consolidation vary between and and large coefficients of secondary compression between 0.065 and 0.14 are observed. Differences in parameters from large-scale and standard tests can be explained by volume and time effects likely linked to biogeochemical degredation of organic carbon and the resulting methane degassing. A curve fit based on the Levenberg–Marquardt nonlinear least-squares optimization method confirmed the applicability of the Terzaghi theory in combination with a creep term.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG (German Research Foundation) as part of the DFG-Research Center Ocean Margins (RCOM) of the University of Bremen No. RCOM 0546. The writers would like to sincerely thank Matthias Lange of the MARUM-Center for Marine Environmental Sciences for the software development and technical support in connection with this paper. Special thanks go to Christoph Tarras from bremenports GmbH & Co. KG, Bremerhaven for providing the sample material and Jens Lesemann and Kai Petereit from PHW mbH in Hamburg for their generous support. The writers would also like to thank Marcia Ferreira from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Prof. Georg Irion from the Senckenberg Institute in Wilhelmshaven for the clay mineral analysis in the framework of the RCOM summer fellowship program. Gas analysis was kindly provided by Markus Elvers of the Marine Geochemistry group of Kai-Uwe Hinrichs, Bremen.
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Published In
Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 4 • July 2009
Pages: 154 - 163
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Aug 2, 2007
Accepted: Jan 11, 2009
Published online: Jun 15, 2009
Published in print: Jul 2009
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