• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.217-231
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• 2018

Clayey soils with swelling and shrinkage characteristics have been major causes for many problems in roads, buildings and other civil engineering infrastructure in various areas of Pakistan, particularly where there are several patches of such soils on either side of Indus River. As the consistency characteristics are directly related with the variation of moisture content; therefore, this study was explicitly focused to investigate the effect of lime and wheat straw on the consistency characteristics of clayey soils with relatively high swelling and shrinkage characteristics. The consistency test results indicate that by the increase in lime content there is a decrease in the plasticity index of soil; for instance, 10% lime content resulted to 59% decrease in the plasticity index value. On the other hand; the addition of wheat straw resulted in a significant increase in the plasticity index; for instance, 10% wheat straw content resulted to a 120% increase in the plasticity index. This study has further shown that the shrinkage and swelling of clayey soils which resulting to several problems in the civil engineering infrastructures may adequately be managed through mixing an appropriate amount of lime and wheat straw as soil stabilizing agent for both immediate and long-term effects.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09b
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• pp.68-75
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• 2010

Around the Nakdong River which is one part of the repairing business of 4 Grand Rivers currently being constructed, sandy ground is distributed throughout the wide area. Many civil engineering structures such as small and medium sized dams, flood control basins, and redevelopment of reservoirs and retention reservoirs are scheduled to be constructed, so the prevention measures for liquefaction are surely needed. To identify such liquefaction, a lot of factor affecting the strength of liquefaction were studied through laboratory investigation. Most of the conducted study was about clean sands, but in the case of the real ground the sand can exist not in the clean conditions but in the conditions mostly including sand of fine grained soil. The sand of fine grained soil has become a significant factor to assess liquefaction because many cases of liquefaction happened in the silty and clayer soil. In this study, un-drained tests of plasticity index of fine grained particles were conducted with the sands from Nakdong River. In result, the study shows that dynamic shear strength characteristics differ according to the plasticity index.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.73-84
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• 2013

When a slope failure or a debris flow occurs, a shear strength on failure plane becomes nearly zero and soil begins to flow like a non-cohesive liquid. A consistency of cohesive soils changes as a water content increases. Even a cohesive soil existing at liquid limit state has a small amount of shear strength. In this study, a water content, at which a shear strength of cohesive soils is zero and then cohesive soils will start to flow, was proposed. Three types of clays (kaolinite, bentonite and kaolinite (50%)+bentonite (50%)) were mixed with three different solutions (distilled water, sea water and microbial solution) at liquid limit state and then their water contents were increased step by step. Then, their undrained shear strength was measured using a portable vane shear device called Torvane. The ranges of undrained shear strength at liquid and plastic limits are 3.6-9.2 kPa and 24-45 kPa, respectively. On the other hand, the water content that corresponds to the value of the undrained shear strength changing most rapidly is called flow water content. The flow limit refers to the water content when undrained shear strength of cohesive soils is zero. In order to investigate the relationship between liquid limit and flow limit, the cohesive index was defined as a value of the difference between flow limit and liquid limit. The new plasticity index was defined as the value of difference between flow limit and plastic limit. The new liquidity index was also defined using flow limit. The values of flow limit are 1.5-2 times higher than those of liquid limit. At the same time, the values of new plasticity index are 2-5.5 times higher than those of original plasticity index.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.31-39
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• 2017

Applicability of Skempton's and Hansbo's equation for estimating strength incremental ratio of Korean marine clayey soil was analyzed. These empirical equations have been commonly applied to design soft ground improvement by, especially, staged loading method. Strength incremental ratios proposed by Skempton (1954, 1957) and Hansbo (1957) using field vane tests(FVTs), measured in Scandinavia depends on plasticity index and liquid limit. Although lean clay in Scandinavia can be classified as clay based on USCS, this soil contains no clay mineral because it was produced by the glacial grinding of rock, sometimes, called rock flour. On the contrary, plasticity indices of Korean marine clayey soils increase linearly with the percentage of clay fraction (% finer than $2{\mu}m$ by weight). Except for strength incremental ratios using $q_u/2$ values in the case of soils having a low plasticity, such as Incheon, Hwaseong and Gunsan soils, these values are in the range of 0.25 to 0.35, independently of the plasticity index, $I_p$.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.289-297
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• 2019

Indiscriminate disposal of waste and citation of open dumpsites are some of the key factors affecting the various soil geotechnical properties. Atterberg limit and consolidation tests were conducted to determine the effects of two open waste dumpsites (Uselu Market and New Benin) on geotechnical properties of their underlying soils. Soil sample collected from Uselu Market dumpsite in Benin City metropolis showed slightly lower hydraulic conductivity (K) of $1.0{\times}10^{-6}$ with plasticity index of 18.53% compared to sample collected 1.6 m from the same dumpsite which had high K value of $2.42{\times}10^{-3}$ with plasticity index of 6.9%. Soil sample collected from New Benin dumpsite in Benin City metropolis showed slightly lower K of $1.45{\times}10^{-6}$ with plasticity index of 13.8% than sample collected 1.6 m from the same dumpsite which had high K value of $2.14{\times}10^{-2}$ with plasticity index of 6.0%. X-ray florescent analyser (X-MET 7000) and direct soil pH meter were used to determine the composition of the aforementioned soil samples. The result of samples collected from both dumpsites indicated a low hydraulic conductivity compared to samples collected 1.6 m from both dumpsites. Also, the chemical composition and pH of both dumpsite underlying soils indicated high level of soil contaminants with pH of 3.3 and 3.5 which is very acidic unlike pH of other samples which were in the neutral range (6.8-7.1). Hence, a liner is recommended for all dumpsites or engineered landfill systems to mitigate against the challenges associated with open waste dumping system in the environment.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.69-78
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• 2003

In order to investigate the dynamic behavior of weathered granite soils before and after freezing-thawing, cyclic triaxial tests were conducted for the specimens not only with the variation of silt contents within 20% but with plasticity index within 20%. As the results, the dynamic shear modulus of weathered granite soils decreased with increasing silt contents. However, the change in damping ratio was negligible. The influence of freezing-thawing on shear modulus and damping ratio was minimal for the granite soils with variation of silt contents. For the case of the weathered soils with variation of plasticity index, the shear modulus increased with plasticity index within 20%, while the modulus decreased remarkably after freezing-thawing.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.135-145
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• 1999

Dynamic Shear modulus (G) is one of the imfortant dynamic soil properties to estimate the response of soil to dynamic loading. Problems in engineering geo1ogy practice the require the knowledge of soil properties subjected to dynamic loadings include soil-structure interaction during earthquakes, bomb blasts, construction operations, and mining. Although the dynamic shear modulus (G) is a time-dependent property, G change with time is often neglected. In this study, the effect of duration of confinement and its affecting factors (previous stress and strain, particle size and sustained pressure, and plasticity index) on the low-amplitude shear modulus ($G_{max}$) of soils are reviewed, and some empirical correlations based on mean particle diameter and plasticity index are proposed.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.15-26
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• 2004

Based on an estimating method for post-cyclic strength and stiffness with cyclic triaxial tests proposed by one of the authors, cyclic Direct Simple Shear (DSS) tests were carried out to confirm whether the method can be adapted to DSS test on fine-grained soils: silty clay, plastic silt, and non-plastic silt. Results from cyclic and post-cyclic DSS tests were interpreted by a modified method as adopted for cyclic and post-cyclic triaxial tests. In particular, influence of plasticity index for fine-grained soils and initial static shear stress (ISSS) was emphasised. Findings obtained from the present study are: (i) liquefaction strength ratio of fine-grained soils decreases with decreasing plasticity index and increasing ISSS; (ii) plasticity index and ISSS did not markedly influence relation between equivalent cyclic stiffness and shear strain relations; (iii) the higher the plasticity index of fine-grained soils is, the less the strength ratio decreases with increment of a normalcies excess pore water pressure (NEPWP); (iv) stiffness ratio of plastic silt has large activity decrease rapidly with increasing excess pore water pressure; and (v) post-cyclic strength and stiffness results from DSS tests agree well with those predicted by the method modified from a procedure used for triaxial test results.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.97-115
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• 2024

In this paper, a database consisting of the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio test data of clay obtained from 406 groups of triaxial tests is constructed with the starting area of Xiong'an New Area as the research background. The aim is to study the nonlinear dynamic properties of clay in this area under cyclic loading. The study found that the effective confining pressure and plasticity index have certain influences on the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of clay in this area. Through data analysis, it was found that there was a certain correlation between effective confining pressure and plasticity index and dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio, with fitting degree values greater than 0.1263 for both. However, other physical indices such as the void ratio, natural density, water content and specific gravity have only a small effect on the dynamic shear modulus ratio and the damping ratio, with fitting degree values of less than 0.1 for all of them. This indicates that it is important to consider the influence of effective confining pressure and plasticity index when studying the nonlinear dynamic properties of clays in this area. Based on the above, prediction models for the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio in this area were constructed separately. The results showed that the model that considered the combined effect of effective confining pressure and plasticity index performed best. The predicted dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio closely matched the actual curves, with approximately 88% of the data falling within ±1.3 times the measured dynamic shear modulus ratio and approximately 85.1% of the data falling within ±1.3 times the measured damping ratio. In contrast, the prediction models that considered only a single influence deviated from the actual values, particularly the model that considered only the plasticity index, which predicted the dynamic shear modulus ratio and the damping ratio within a small distribution range close to the average of the test values. When compared with existing prediction models, it was found that the predicted dynamic shear modulus ratio in this paper was slightly higher, which was due to the overall hardness of the clay in this area, leading to a slightly higher determination of the dynamic shear modulus ratio by the prediction model. Finally, for the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of the engineering site in the starting area of Xiong'an New Area, we confirm that the prediction formulas established in this paper have high reliability and provide the applicable range of the prediction model.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.9-18
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• 2018

The soil parameters important for the design of the soft ground are the compression index ($C_c$), the consolidation settlement and consolidation speed at the field. Compression index is obtained by laboratory consolidation test. In the laboratory consolidation test, sample disturbance always occurs. In order to correct the disturbance phenomena, the method of calculating the compression index proposed by Schmertmann (1955) is generally used. However, recent developments in sampling technology and Korean soil conditions are different from those proposed by Schmertmann. So it needs to be verified. In this study, each consolidation curve's cross void ratio is evaluated by doing consolidation test varying disturbance on high-plastic clay (CH), low-plastic clay (CL) and low-plastic silt (ML). The test results were $0.521e_0$ for low-plastic silt, $0.404e_0$ for low-plastic clay, and $0.458e_0$ for the high-plastic clay. This results were different from those of Schmertmann's suggested value of $0.42e_0$. Therefor we proposed a correction formula using the plastic index according to soil type. However, since the results of this study are limited test results, further studies on various korean soil are needed to suggest the compression index correction method according to the degree of plasticity index of soil.