Effects of Silt Content and Void Ratio on the Saturated Hydraulic Conductivity and Compressibility of Sand-Silt Mixtures
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 12
Abstract
The hydraulic conductivity, the coefficient of consolidation, and the coefficient of volume compressibility play major roles on the pore pressure generation during undrained and partially drained loading of granular soils with fines. This paper aims to determine how much these soil parameters are affected by the percentage of fines and void ratio of the soil. The results of a large number of flexible wall permeameter tests performed on 60 specimens of two poorly graded sands with 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25% nonplastic silt are presented and discussed. Hydraulic conductivity measurements were done at effective confining stresses of 50–300 kPa. The evaluation of the data shows that the hydraulic conductivity and the coefficient of consolidation of sands with 25% silt content are approximately two orders of magnitude smaller than those of clean sands. The coefficient of volume compressibility of the sand-silt mixtures is affected in a lesser degree by void ratio, silt content, and confining stress. The influence of the degree of saturation on the laboratory-measured values is also discussed.
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Acknowledgments
Nineteen specimens were tested by Thanabalasingam Sathees, former graduate assistant, under the direction of the first writer. The writers thank Selvarajah Ramesh and Charles G. Johnpillai for their assistance during the testing.
References
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Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 135 • Issue 12 • December 2009
Pages: 1976 - 1980
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Sep 7, 2007
Accepted: Jun 13, 2009
Published online: Nov 13, 2009
Published in print: Dec 2009
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