State Boundary Surfaces for an Aged Compacted Clay
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 9
Abstract
The yielding and the peak strength of an aged compacted clay were studied by conducting a series of suction-controlled triaxial tests. The test results were interpreted using the framework of intrinsic properties of reconstituted soil. The peak strength envelopes of undisturbed samples lie above those of reconstituted samples. The suction provides additional attractive forces to stabilize the soil structure, which result in the augmentation of the yield stress and peak strength envelope. The shear strength is normalized by the equivalent preconsolidation pressure and Hvorslev surfaces are identified from undisturbed samples which expand with suction. A single peak strength envelope and Hvorslev surface will be emerged from the saturated and unsaturated (degree of saturation ) samples if the shear strength data are presented in terms of the average skeleton stress. The influence of the soil structure on the shear strength of the aged compacted clay may be measured by the ratio of normalized strengths at the intrinsic critical state which is about 1.26
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study was sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through Grant No. NNSFC50878076.
References
Alonso, E. E., Gens, A., and Josa, A. (1990). “A constitutive model for partially saturated soils.” Geotechnique, 40(3), 405–430.
Barden, L., and Sides, G. R. (1970). “Engineering behaviour and structure of compacted clay.” J. Soil Mech. and Found. Div., 96, 1171–1200.
Bishop, A. W. (1959). “The principle of effective stress.” Tek. Ukeblad, 106(39), 859–863.
Bishop, A. W., and Blight, G. E. (1963). “Some aspects of effective stress in saturated and partly saturated soils.” Geotechnique, 13(3), 177–197.
Bolzon, G., Schrefler, B. A., and Zienkiewicz, O. C. (1996). “Elasto-plastic soil constitutive laws generalised to partially saturated states.” Geotechnique, 46(2), 279–289.
Borja, R. I. (2004). “Conservation laws for three-phase partially saturated granular media.” Proc., Int. Conf. from Experimental Evidence towards Numerical Modeling of Unsaturated Soils, Weimar, Germany, Springer, Berlin, 3–14.
Burland, J. B. (1990). “On the compressibility and shear strength of natural clays.” Geotechnique, 40(3), 329–378.
Burland, J. B., Rampello, S., Georgiannou, V. N., and Calabresi, G. (1996). “A laboratory study of four stiff clays.” Geotechnique, 46(3), 491–514.
Butterfield, R. (1979). “A natural compression law for soils.” Geotechnique, 29(4), 469–480.
Cui, Y. J., and Delage, P. (1996). “Yielding and plastic behaviour of an unsaturated compacted silt.” Geotechnique, 46(2), 291–311.
Cunningham, M. R., Ridley, A. M., Dineen, K., and Burland, J. B. (2003). “The mechanical behaviour of a reconstituted unsaturated silty clay.” Geotechnique, 53(2), 183–194.
Estabragh, A. R., and Javadi, A. (2008). “Critical state for overconsolidated unsaturated silty soil.” Can. Geotech. J., 45(3), 408–420.
Fredlund, D. G., and Morgenstern, N. R. (1977). “Stress state variables for unsaturated soils.” J. Geotech. Engrg. Div., 103(5), 447–466.
Gallipoli, D., Gens, A., Sharma, R., and Vaunat, J. (2003). “An elasto-plastic model for unsaturated soil incorporating the effects of suction and degree of saturation on mechanical behaviour.” Geotechnique, 53(1), 123–135.
Gens, A. (1996). “Constitutive modeling: Application to compacted soils.” Proc., 1st Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, E. E. Alonso, and P. Delage, eds., Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1179–1200.
Head, K. H. (1986). Manual of soil laboratory testing: Effective stress tests, 3rd Ed., Vol. 3, Wiley, New York.
Hilf, J. W. (1956). “An investigation of pore water pressure in compacted cohesive soils.” U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Technical Memorandum 654.
Houlsby, G. T. (1997). “The work input to an unsaturated granular material.” Geotechnique, 47(1), 193–196.
Ji, L. T. (2007). “Shear strength and nonlinear constitutive model of unsaturated soil.” MS thesis, Hohai Univ., Nanjing, China (in Chinese).
Jommi, C. (2000). “Remarks on the constitutive modeling of unsaturated soils.” Proc., Experimental Evidence and Theoretical Approaches in Unsaturated Soils, A. Tarantino and C. Mancuso, eds., Balkema, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 139–153.
Jotisankasa, A., Coop, M., and Ridley, A. (2009). “The mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated compacted silty clay.” Geotechnique, 59(5), 415–428.
Jotisankasa, A., Ridley, A., and Coop, M. (2007). “Collapse behavior of compacted silty clay in suction-monitored oedometer apparatus.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 133(7), 867–877.
Kogho, Y., Nakano, M., and Myazaki, T. (1993). “Theoretical aspects of constitutive modeling for unsaturated soils.” Soils Found., 33(4), 49–63.
Koliji, A. (2008). “Mechanical behaviour of unsaturated aggregated soils.” Ph.D. thesis, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Leroueil, S., and Vaughan, P. R. (1990). “The general and congruent effects of structure in natural soils and weak rocks.” Geotechnique, 40(3), 467–488.
Lo, S. R., and Wardani, S. P. R. (2002). “Strength and dilatancy of a silt stabilized by a cement and fly ash mixture.” Can. Geotech. J., 39, 77–89.
Loret, B., and Khalili, N. (2000). “A three phase model for unsaturated soils.” Int. J. Numer. Analyt. Meth. Geomech., 24(11), 893–927.
Lu, N. (2008). “Is matric suction a stress variable?” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 134(7), 899–905.
Lu, N., and Likos, W. J. (2004). Unsaturated soil mechanics, Wiley, New York.
Maatouk, A., Leroueil, S., and La Rochelle, P. (1995). “Yielding and critical state of a collapsible unsaturated silty soil.” Geotechnique, 45(3), 465–477.
Melinda, F., Rahardjo, H., Han, K. K., and Leong, E. C. (2004). “Shear strength of compacted soil under infiltration condition.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 130(8), 807–817.
Ministry of Construction of P. R. China. (1992). “Technical standard for sampling of undisturbed soil.” JGJ 89-92, Beijing (in Chinese).
Ministry of Construction of P. R. China. (1999). “Standard for soil test method.” GB/T 50123-1999, Beijing (in Chinese).
Mitchell, J. K., and Soga, K. (2005). Fundamentals of soil behaviour, 3rd Ed., Wiley Interscience, New York.
Ng, C. W. W., and Chiu, A. C. F. (2001). “Behaviour of a loosely compacted unsaturated volcanic soil.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 127(12), 1027–1036.
Ng, C. W. W., and Chiu, A. C. F. (2003). “Laboratory study of loose saturated and unsaturated decomposed granitic soil.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 129(6), 550–559.
Russell, A. R., and Khalili, N. (2006). “A unified bounding surface plasticity model for unsaturated soils.” Int. J. Numer. Analyt. Meth. Geomech., 30(3), 181–212.
Seed, H. B., and Chan, C. K. (1959). “Structure and strength characteristics of compacted clays.” J. Soil Mech. and Found. Div., 85(5), 87–128.
Sheng, D., Sloan, S. W., and Gens, A. (2004). “A constitutive model for unsaturated soils: Thermomechanical and computational aspects.” Comput. Mech., 33(6), 453–465.
Sivakumar, R., Sivakumar, V., Blatz, J., and Vimalan, J. (2006). “Twin-cell stress path apparatus for testing unsaturated soils.” Geotech. Test. J., 29(2), 175–179.
Sivakumar, V. (1993). “A critical state framework for unsaturated soil.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Sheffield, Sheffield, U.K.
Sivakumar, V., and Wheeler, S. J. (2000). “Influence of compaction procedure on the mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated compacted clay. Part 1: Wetting and isotropic compression.” Geotechnique, 50(4), 359–368.
Sun, D. A. (2007). “Mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soil specimens with different preparations.” Proc., 3rd Asian Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, Z. Z. Yin, J. P. Yuan, and A. C. F. Chiu, eds., Science Press, Beijing, 303–309.
Tarantino, A. (2007). “A possible critical state framework for unsaturated compacted soils.” Geotechnique, 57(4), 385–389.
Thu, T. M., Rahardjo, H., and Leong, E. C. (2007). “Soil-water characteristic curve and consolidation behavior for a compacted silt.” Can. Geotech. J., 44(3), 266–275.
Wheeler, S. J. (1986). “The stress-strain behaviour of soils containing gas bubbles.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Oxford, Oxford.
Wheeler, S. J., Sharma, R. S., and Buisson, M. S. R. (2003). “Coupling of hydraulic hysteresis and stress-strain behaviour in unsaturated soils.” Geotechnique, 53(1), 41–54.
Wheeler, S. J., and Sivakumar, V. (1995). “Elasto-plastic critical state framework for unsaturated soil.” Geotechnique, 45(1), 35–53.
Wheeler, S. J., and Sivakumar, V. (2000). “Influence of compaction procedure on the mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated compacted clay. Part 2: Shearing and constitutive modelling.” Geotechnique, 50(4), 369–376.
Zhan, T. L. T., and Ng, C. W. W. (2006). “Shear strength characteristics of an unsaturated expansive clay.” Can. Geotech. J., 43(7), 751–763.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 9 • September 2010
Pages: 1251 - 1262
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 30, 2009
Accepted: Jan 13, 2010
Published online: Jan 15, 2010
Published in print: Sep 2010
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.