• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.113-126
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• 1995

Both resonant column (RC) and torsional shear(TS) tests were performed at small to intermediate strain levels to investigate deformational characteristics of cohesive soils. The effects of variables such as strain amplitude, loading frequency, and number of loading cycles were studied. Plasticity index was found to be an important variables in evaluating these effects. Soils tested include undisturbed silts and clays and compacted subgrade soils. At small strains below the elastic threshold, shear modulus is independent of number of loading cycles and strain amplitude. Small strain material damping exists wi th ranges be tween 1.1% and 1.7% for 75 tests. The elastic threshold strain increases as confining pressure and plasticity index increases. Above the cyclic threshold strain, the modulus of cohesive soil decreases with increasing number of cycles while damping ratio is almost independent of number of load cycles. Moduli and damping ratios of cohesive soils obtanined by RC test are higher than those from 75 test because of the frequency effect. Shear modulus of cohesive soil increases linearly as a function of the logarithm of loading frequency.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.315-328
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• 2023

The main goal of the present study was to assess the effects of eggshell powder (ESP) and halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) on the mechanical properties of abaca fiber (AF)-reinforced natural composites. For this purpose, a limited number of indentation tests were first performed on the AF/polypropylene (PP) composites for different HNT and ESP loadings (0 wt.% ~ 6 wt.%), load amplitudes (150, 200, and 250 N), and two types of indenters (Vickers or conical). The Young's modulus, hardness and plasticity index of each specimen were calculated using the indentation test results and Oliver-Pharr method. The accuracy of the experimental results was confirmed by comparing the values of the Young's modulus obtained from the indentation test with the results of the conventional tensile test. Then, a feed-forward shallow artificial neural network (ANN) with high efficiency was trained based on the obtained experimental data. The trained ANN could properly predict the variations of the mentioned mechanical properties of AF/PP composites incorporated with different HNT and ESP loadings. Furthermore, the trained ANN demonstrated that HNTs increase the elastic modulus and hardness of the composite, while the incorporation of ESP reduces these properties. For instance, the Young's modulus of composites incorporated with 3 wt.% of ESP decreased by 30.7% compared with the pure composite, while increasing the weight fraction of ESP up to 6% decreased the Young's modulus by 34.8%. Moreover, the trained ANN indicated that HNTs have a more significant effect on reducing the plasticity index than ESP.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 2017

Swelling and shrinkage characteristics of expansive fine grained soil cause volumetric changes followed by distress and damage to the structures. Soil stabilization can be explained as the alteration of the soil properties by chemical, mechanical or any other means in order to enhance the engineering properties of the soil. Utilization of industrial wastes in soil stabilization is cost effective and environment friendly. This paper presents an experimental study on stabilization of expansive soil using industrial wastes, viz. fly ash and dolochar. The paper includes the evaluation of engineering properties like unconfined compressive strength and California bearing ratio (CBR) of expansive soil collected from Balasore district of Odisha stabilized with fly ash and dolochar in different proportions and to predict the influence of these additives on engineering properties and strength characteristics of expansive soil. Both fly ash and dolochar were found to increase the CBR and decrease many index properties such as liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index, swelling index and UCS, thus enhancing the strength parameters of expansive soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.173-186
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• 2015

The rapid urbanization in Pakistan is creating a shortage of sustainable construction sites with good soil conditions. Attempts have been made to use rice husk ash (RHA) in concrete industry of Pakistan, however, limited literature is available on its potential to improve local soils. This paper presents an experimental study on engineering properties of low and high plastic cohesive soils blended with 0-20% RHA by dry weight of soil. The decrease in plasticity index and shrinkage ratio indicates a reduction in swell potential of RHA treated cohesive soils which is beneficial for problems related to placing pavements and footings on such soils. It is also observed that the increased formation of pozzolanic products within the pore spaces of soil from physicochemical changes transforms RHA treated soils to a compact mass which decreases both total settlement and rate of settlement. A notable increase in friction angle with increase in RHA up to 16% was also observed in direct shear tests. It is concluded that RHA treatment is a cost-effective and sustainable alternate to deal with problematic local cohesive soils in agro-based developing countries like Pakistan.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.827-836
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• 2016

The rate of softening is an important factor to determine whether the failure occurs along localized shear band or in a more diffused manner. In this paper, strength loss and softening rate effect depending on sensitivity are investigated for weakly cemented clays, for both artificially cemented high plasticity San Francisco Bay Mud and low plasticity Yolo Loam. Destructuration and softening behavior for weakly cemented sensitive clays are demonstrated and discussed through multiple vane shear tests. Artificial sensitive clays are prepared in the laboratory for physical modeling or constitutive modeling using a small amount of cement (2 to 5%) with controlled initial water content and curing period. Through test results, shear band thickness is theoretically computed and the rate of softening is represented as a newly introduced parameter, ${\omega}_{80%}$. Consequently, it is found that the softening rate increases with sensitivity for weakly cemented sensitive clays. Increased softening rate represents faster strength loss to residual state and faster minimizing of shear band thickness. Uncemented clay has very low softening rate to 80% strength drop. Also, it is found that higher brittleness index ($I_b$) relatively shows faster softening rate. The result would be beneficial to study of physical modeling for sensitive clays in that artificially constructed high sensitivity (up to $S_t=23$) clay exhibits faster strain softening, which results in localized shear band failure once it is remolded.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Crop Science Conference
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• 2017.06a
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• pp.230-230
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• 2017

About 200 rice varieties for irrigated and rainfed lowland ecosystems were released in the Philippines, which were bred for improving yield under favorable conditions. Root plasticity plays key roles in maintaining crop productivity under abiotic stressed conditions. We hypothesized that some of these varieties possess root plasticity traits in response to water stressed conditions. This study aimed to evaluate the root system development and dry matter production of 14 randomly selected rice varieties (6 irrigated lowland and 9 rainfed varieties) under progressive drought (PDR) and soil moisture fluctuations (SMF) stress conditions. Two experiments were done in rootbox and line source sprinkler systems (LSS). Each of the varieties was subjected to well-watered (WW), PDR and SMF conditions during vegetative stage in rootbox system while the same genotypes were subjected to different intensities of drought stress under LSS. Under rootbox system, PDR and SMF significantly reduced shoot dry matter production in all varieties relative to their WW controls. Among varieties, NSIC Rc238 (irrigated lowland) showed the least reduction in shoot dry weight (SDW) in both PDR (by 11.8%) and SMF (by 26.9%) conditions. Less reductions in SDW of NSICRc238 were partially attributed to the promotion of L-type lateral roots, thus increasing total lateral root length by 24.2% and 30.7% under PDR and SMF, respectively. In LSS, SDW of NSIC Rc238 under mild drought stress (16-21% soil moisture content (SMC) had 31.8% reduction relative to its WW control (${\geq}22%SMC$) and had lower sensitivity drought index. Compared with the IR64 susceptible check and NSIC Rc9 tolerant check, NSIC Rc238 had higher SDW by 90.8% and 38.6%, respectively. Furthermore, no rainfed lowland varieties included in the experiment performed well under different water stress treatments. The results implied that some other irrigated lowland rice varieties may also possess drought dehydration avoidance root plasticity traits under water-stressed growing environments.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.9
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• pp.17-27
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• 2016

Parial drainage characteristics of clayey silt with low plasticity from the west coast (Incheon and Hwaseong) was analyzed using CPTU based existing correlation equations and compulsory replacement method. Generally, the estimated $OCRs={\kappa}{\cdot}((q_t-{\sigma}_{vo})/{\sigma}^{\prime}_{vo})$ using Powell and Quartman(1988) were higher than those obtained by the oeodometer tests. These trends were noticeable for the layers containing a lot of silty and sand soils. The assessment of partial drainage conditions was performed through Schnaid et al. (2004)'s equation; it is based on plotting the normalized cone resistance, $Q_t$ versus the pore pressure parameter, $B_q$ in combination with the strength incremental ratio, $s_u/{\sigma}^{\prime}_{vo}$ to the CPTU data. It is evident that more than half of the data fall in the range where $B_q$ < 0.3, corresponding to the domain in which the partial drainage prevails when testing normally consolidated soils at a standard rate of penetration (2 cm/s). To estimate the replacement depth of clayey silt with low plasticity, back analysis was carried out to evaluate the internal friction angle based on where the design depths are equal to the checked depths using bearing capacity equation. The internal friction angels obtained from the back analysis tended to increase as the plasticity index decreases, which is ranged approximately from ${\varphi}^{\prime}=2^{\circ}$ to ${\varphi}^{\prime}=7^{\circ}$.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.41-49
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• 2012

In this study, laboratory test, in-situ vane shear test and piezocone penetration test in the study area were conducted to investigate the engineering characteristics of soft soils at Cheongra District, Songdo District in Incheon City, the west coast of Gyeonggi province, and Sihwa District in Ansan city. The correlations among compression index, and in-situ vane shear test, and cone resistance were obtained. The variations of liquid limit, plasticity index, water content and compression index with respect to depth exhibit strong similarity. This means that they have strong correlations, which can be used to evaluate the local characteristics of the study area. Thus, the correlations between compression index and physical properties were analysed to investigate the engineering characteristics of soft soil in the study area. The relationships between the measured piezocone factor by empirical methods, and undrained shear strength obtained by triaxial compression test or in-situ vane shear test were compared. It shows the significant correlation and piezocone factors, $N_{kT}$are suggested for the study area.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.125-140
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• 2018

Tianjin, which is located on the west shore of the Bohai Sea, is part of China's Circum-Bohai-Sea Region, where very weak clay is deposited. From the 1970s to the early $21^{st}$ century, Tianjin marine clay deposits have been the subject of numerous geotechnical investigations. Because of these deposits' geological complexity, great depositional thickness, high water content, large void ratio, excessive settlement, and low shear strength, the geotechnical properties of Tianjin marine clay need to be summarized and evaluated based on various in situ and laboratory tests so that Tianjin can safely and economically sustain more infrastructure in the coming decades. In this study, the properties of Tianjin marine clay, especially its consolidation properties, are summarized, evaluated and discussed. The focus is on establishing correlations between the geotechnical property indexes and mechanical parameters of Tianjin marine clay. These correlations include the correlations between the water content and the void ratio, the depth and the undrained shear strength, the liquid limit and the compression index, the tip resistance and the constrained modulus, the plasticity index and the ratio of undrained shear strength and the preconsolidation pressure. In addition, the primary consolidation properties of Tianjin marine clay, such as the intrinsic compression line (ICL), sedimentation compression line (SCL), compression index, $C_c$, coefficient of consolidation, $C_v$, and hydraulic conductivity change index, $C_{kv}$, are evaluated and discussed. A secondary consolidation property, i.e., the secondary compression index, $C_a$, is also investigated, and the results show that the ratio of $C_a/C_c$ for Tianjin marine clay can be used to calculate $C_a$ in secondary consolidation settlement predictions.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.5-16
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• 1989

This paper statistically analyses the freezing soil by frost group and frost depth in Korea with data from soil testing in the Korea National Housing Corporation, the climate data provided by the Central Weather Office and the data on the frost depth from the National Construction Laboratory Institute. In this paper, freezing variable are analysed such as percentage finer than 0.02 m by weight, plasticity index, freezing index, water contents of soil and frost depth etc‥‥ The result of the analysis is as follows. 1) The frost depth of Korea depends on the properties of soil rather thank the characte fistic of area. 2) The distribution map of design freezing index in 57 cities is drawn up with the maxi- mum freezing index, during past 14 years, calculated by the average of the air temperature observed four times(03 : 00.09 00, 15 : 00, 21 : 00) a day. 3) By correcting the OLS line estimated from the relationship between freezing index and frost depth, a method of utlizing the line with the upper confidence limit of 99.9% int-distribution as predicted maximum frost depth is newly introduced.