Effective Stress Behavior of Quasi-Saturated Compacted Cohesive Soils

Important geotechnical structures constructed on compacted cohesive soils often involve compaction either around or on the wet side of optimum water content. In general, at these water content values, water voids are continuous and air voids are occluded, and the soil may be assumed to be in a state termed as “quasi-saturated.” This paper evaluates the effective stress behavior of such quasi-saturated compacted specimens of Gangetic silt and Canyon dam clay in the broad framework of the conventional modified Cam-clay model. The initial state of quasi-saturated compacted specimens is shown to lie on the recompression line in w versus ln(p′) space. The actual recompression line on which the specimen state would lie, and the corresponding equivalent past maximum pressure, are found to depend only on the amount of compaction energy and the soil structure, and are independent of the molding water content or initial dry density. It is observed that, at low effective confining stresses, quasi-saturated compacted soils behave like overconsolidated soils and the effective stress paths during undrained shear lie on the Hvorslev surface. However, at confining stresses greater than the past maximum pressure, these soils behave like normally consolidated soils and the effective stress paths move practically along the Roscoe surface toward the critical state line.