Effect of Destructuration on the Compressibility of Perniö Clay in Incremental Loading Oedometer Tests
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 16, Issue 1
Abstract
The paper evaluates the destructuration and creep properties of soft sensitive Perniö clay during one-dimensional consolidation. Incremental loading oedometer tests presented herein were part of an extensive testing program performed on natural and reconstituted samples of Perniö clay. Given the experimental results, general stress–strain compression curves were investigated taking into consideration the effects of clay structure and sample quality. The effect of sample disturbance on preconsolidation pressure was quantitatively evaluated by an exponential relationship. Compression parameters accounted for the detailed stress-dependent behavior. The assumption that the ratio would be constant in one-dimensional consolidation was proven wrong. Three new sensitivity approaches were developed and proved to be feasible in comparison with sensitivity determined by fall cone tests. The developed sensitivity indices were exponentially related to the initial void ratio . The stress–strain–strain rate isotaches were plotted to explore the gradual destructuration process at different strain rates. For Perniö clay, the isotaches coupled with strain rates were neither parallel in linear nor natural logarithmic scale. Special attention was given to the tangent modulus theory, which was used to analyze the complete destructuration process of natural clay. The defined characteristic parameters were interpreted, taking into account sampling depth and sample quality.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The work was sponsored by the Academy of Finland (Grant 128459). The authors would like to thank the laboratory of geotechnical engineering at Tampere University of Technology and laboratory of soil mechanics and foundation engineering at Aalto University for their help.
References
Barden, L. (1965). “Consolidation of clay with non-linear viscosity.” Géotechnique, 15(4), 345–362.
Bjerrum, L. (1967). “Engineering geology of norwegian normally consolidated marine clays as related to the settlements of buildings.” Géotechnique, 17(2), 83–118.
Burland, J. B. (1990). “On the compressibility and shear strength of natural clays.” Géotechnique, 40(3), 329–378.
Chandler, R. J. (2000). “Clay sediments in depositional basin: The geotechnical cycle.” Q. J. Eng. Geol. Hydrogeol., 33(1), 7–39.
Claesson, P. (2003). “Long term settlements in soft clays.” Ph.D. thesis, Dept. of Geotechnical Engineering, Chalmers Univ. of Technology, Goteborg, Sweden.
Graham, J. (2006). “The 2003 R.M. Hardy lecture: Soil parameters for numerical analysis in clay.” Can. Geotech. J., 43, 187–209.
Graham, J., Crooks, J. H. A., and Bell, A. L. (1983). “Time effects on the stress-strain behaviour of natural soft clays.” Géotechnique, 33(3), 327–340.
Hawley, J. G., and Borin, D. J. (1973). “A unified theory for the consolidation of clays.” Proc., 8th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Eng., 1(3), 107–119.
Hight, D. W., Hamza, M. M., and El Sayed, A. S. (2002). “Engineering characterization of the Nile delta clays.” Proc., Int. Symp. IS Yokohama 2000, A. Nakase and T. Tsuchida, eds., Vol. 2, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 149–162.
Janbu, N. (1963). “Soil compressibility as determined by oedometer and triaxial tests.” Proc. Europ. Conf. Soil Mech. and Found. Eng., Vol. 1, Wiesbaden, Germany, 19–25.
Janbu, N. (1967). “Settlement calculations based on the tangent modulus concept.” Lectures given at the Moscow State Univ., Bulletin 2, NTH Publications, Trondheim, Sweden.
Karstunen, M., and Koskinen, M. (2004). “Undrained shearing of soft natural clays.” 9th Symp. on Numerical Models in Geomechanics, A. A. Balkema, Leiden, Netherlands, 173–179.
Karstunen, M., Krenn, H., Wheeler, S. J., Koskinen, M., and Zentar, R. (2005). “Effect of anisotropy and destructuration on the behavior of murro test embankment.” Int. J. Geomech., 87–97.
Karstunen, M., Yin, Z. Y., Koskinen, M., Leoni, M., and Vermeer, P. A. (2008). “Some recent developments in constitutive modelling of soft clays.” 12th Int. Conf. of the International Association of Computer Methods and Advances in Geomechanics (IACMAG), Goa, India, 966–975.
Koskinen, M., and Karstunen, M. (2004). “The effect of structure on the compressibility of Finnish clays.” NGM 2004 XIV Nordic Geotechnical Meeting, Ystad, Sweden, A-11–A-22.
Koskinen, M., Karstunen, M., and Lojander, M. (2003). “Yielding of “ideal” and natural anisotropic clays.” Proc. Int. Workshop on Geotechnics of Soft Soils: Theory and Practice, P. A. Vermeer, H. F. Schweiger, M. Karstunen, and M. Cudny, eds., Noordwijkerhout, VGE.
Koskinen, M., Karstunen, M., and Wheeler, S. J. (2002). “Modelling destructuration and anisotropy of a soft natural clay.” 5th European Conf. on Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering, Ph. Mestat. Presses de l’ENPC/LCPC, ed., Paris, 11–20.
Larsson, R., Bengtsson, P. E., and Eriksson, L. (1997). Prediction of settlements of embankments on soft, fine-grained soils – Calculation of settlements and their course with time, Information No. 13E,Swedish Geotechnical Institute, Linköping, Sweden.
Larsson, R., and Sällfors, G. (1986). “Automatic continuous consolidation testing in Sweden. consolidation of soils: Testing and evaluation.” STP 892, ASTM, West Conshohoken, PA, 299–328.
Leroueil, S., Kabbaj, M., Tavenas, F., and Bouchard, R. (1985). “Stress-strain-strain rate relation for the compressibility of sensitive natural clays.” Géotechnique, 35(2), 159–180.
Leroueil, S., Samson, L., and Bozozuk, M. (1983). “Laboratory and field determination of preconsolidation pressures at Gloucester.” Can. Geotech. J., 20(3), 477–490.
Leroueil, S., and Vaughan, P. R. (1990). “The general and congruent effects of structure in natural soils and weak rocks.” Géotechnique, 40(3), 467–488.
Lunne, T., Berre, T., Andersen, K. H., Strandvik, S., and Sjursen, M. (2006). “Effects of sample disturbance and consolidation procedures on measured shear strength of soft marine Norwegian clays.” Can. Geotech. J., 43, 726–750.
Lunne, T., Berre, T., and Strandvik, S. (1997). “Sample disturbance effects in soft low plastic Norwegian clay.” Proc., Conf. on Recent Developments in Soil and Pavement Mechanics, M. Almeida and A. A. Balkema, eds., Rotterdam, Netherlands, 81–102.
Mesri, G., and Castro, A. (1987). “The concept and during secondary compression.” J. Geotech. Eng., 113(3), 230–247.
Nash, D. F. T. (2010). “Influence of destructuration of soft clay on time-dependent settlements.” Numerical methods in geotechnical engineering, T. Benz and S. Nordal, eds., Taylor & Francis, London, 75–80.
Ohde, J. (1939). “Zur theorie der druckverteilung im baugrund.” Der Bauingeniur, 20(33/34), 451–459 (in German).
Schofield, A. N., and Wroth, C. P. (1968). Critical state soil mechanics, McGraw-Hill, London, 310.
Šuklje, L. (1957). “The analysis of the consolidation process by the isotache method.” Proc., 4th Int. Conf. on Soil Mech. Found. Eng., London, 200–206.
Šuklje, L. (1969). “Consolidation of viscous soils subjected to continuously increasing uniform load.” New Adv. Soil Mech., 1, 199–325.
Tanaka, H., Locat, J., Shibuya, S., Soon, T. T., and Shiwakoti, D. R. (2001). “Characterization of Singapore, Bangkok, and Ariake clays.” Can. Geotech. J., 38, 378–400.
Taylor, D. W. (1942). Research on consolidation of clays, Dept. of Civil and Sanitary Engineering Series 82, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA.
Terzaghi, K. (1944). “Ends and means in soil mechanics.” Eng. J. Can., 27, 608.
Yin, Z. Y., Hattab, M., and Hicher, P. Y. (2011). “Multiscale modeling of a sensitive marine clay.” Int. J. Numer. Anal. Meth., 35, 1682–1702.
Yin, Z. Y., Karstunen, M., Chang, C. S., Koskinen, M., and Lojander, M. (2011). “Modeling time-dependent behaviour of soft sensitive clay.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron., 137(11), 1103–1113.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 16 • Issue 1 • February 2016
Copyright
© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 5, 2014
Accepted: Dec 9, 2014
Published online: May 2, 2015
Discussion open until: Oct 2, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.