• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.411-426
• /
• 2023

Soft clay is widely distributed in the southeast coastal areas of China. Many large underground structures, such as subway stations and underground pipe corridors, are shallow buried in the soft clay foundation, so the dynamic characteristics of the soft clay must be considered to the seismic design of underground structures. In this paper, the dynamic characteristics of saturated soft clay in Shanghai under the bidirectional excitation for earthquake loading are studied by dynamic triaxial tests, comparing the backbone curve and hysteretic curve of the saturated soft clay under different confining pressures with those under different vibration frequencies. Considering the coupling effects of the confining pressure and the vibration frequency, a fitting model of the maximum dynamic shear modulus was proposed by the multiple linear regression method. The M-D model was used to fit the variations of the dynamic shear modulus ratio with the shear strain. Based on the Chen model and the Park model, the effects of the consolidation confining pressure and the vibration frequency on the damping ratio were studied. The results can provide a reference to the earthquake prevention and disaster reduction in soft clay area.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
• /
• v.45 no.4
• /
• pp.126-136
• /
• 2003

The B value on the saturated soil is commonly known as the amount of 1. Usually this concept is consistent with the condition that effective stress is equal to zero, but it was reported in some literatures that the B value was less than 1 in spite of saturated condition in the test of very stiff material such as rock and quasi-stiff material on which the stiffness can be mobilized because of effective stress not equal to zero. In this study the B value was measured on various effective stress conditions on normally consolidated clay. The test results in the B value less than 1 in spite of perfect saturation. The measured excessive pore water pressure was not only smaller than the change of the total stress, but also the function of time on clay.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2000.09a
• /
• pp.73-78
• /
• 2000

The reinforced soil has been widely used for constructing retaining walls and embankment with steep slope. However, the benefits of soil reinforcing are often-restricted by a lack of good quality backfill material. In this study, plane strain compression tests were carried out to study the effects of preloading on the behavior of geosynthetic-reinforced saturated clay. For the unreinforced and reinforced soil, drained and undrained shearing tests were peformed after anisotropic consolidation in a constant strain rate. A preoading test was carried out by preloading, creep, unloading, aging and undrained shearing after anisotropic consolidation(K=0.3, σ'₃=50 kPa). It was observed that a reinforced clay, Kanto loam, can have a great initial secant modulus in undraind condition by well compaction and over consolidation. The results shown that the increasing of drained strength should be used to apply a large preloading in the case of reinforced clay.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.83-98
• /
• 2005

In this paper, a conceptual approach of the stress path method was newly proposed for a rational estimation of settlements of saturated clay deposits. In the proposed approach, settlement-related characteristic deformation behaviors of a specific clay deposit, which can cover all probable stress changes expected in the field, are experimentally evaluated in advance. Then settlements of various structures constructed on the deposit are easily estimated with only the characteristic deformation behaviors and without any additional experimental effort. In Part I of this paper, in order to provide practicality to the new conceptual approach, we developed a detailed procedure which is capable of evaluating characteristic deformation behaviors of a saturated clay deposit with only a limited number of tests and easily predicting deformations under a given stress change using the characteristic deformation behaviors. The applicability of the developed procedure was clearly shown by presenting an actual application example.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.67-84
• /
• 2005

This research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of reinforcement for nearly saturated soft clay compaction. The effectiveness was investigated by roller compaction test using nearly saturated clay specimens. The nearly saturated condition was obtained by submerging clay in the water for 12 hours. High water content specimens were compacted in plane strain condition by a steel roller. A specimen was compacted by four 5 cm horizontal layers. Specimens were prepared fur both reinforced and unreinforced cases to evaluate the effectiveness of reinforcement. Used reinforcement is a composite consisted of both woven and non-woven geotextile. The composite usually provides drainage and tensile reinforcement to hi인 water-contented clay so that it increases bearing capacity. Therefore, large compaction load can be applied to reinforced clay and it achieves higher density effectively. The reinforcement also increases compaction efficiency because it reduces the ratio between shear and vertical forces during compaction process. The maximum vertical stress on the base of specimen usually decreased with higher compaction thickness. The reinforcement increases soil stiffness under the compaction roller and it initiates stress concentration. As a result, it maintains higher vertical stress level on the base of specimen that provides better compaction characteristics. Based on test results, it can be concluded that the reinforcement is essential to achieve effective compaction on soft clay.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.825-844
• /
• 2017

This study aimed to find out the pullout capacity of inclined strip anchor plate embedded in anisotropic and nonhomogeneous fully saturated cohesive soil in undrained condition. The ultimate pullout load has been found out by using numerical lower bound finite element analysis with linear programming. The undrained pullout capacity of anchor plate of width B is determined for different embedment ratios (H/B) varying from 3 to 7 and various inclination of anchor plates ranging from $0^{\circ}$ to $90^{\circ}$ with an interval of $15^{\circ}$. In case of anisotropic fully saturated clay the variation of cohesion with direction has been considered by varying the ratio of the cohesion along vertical direction ($c_v$) to the cohesion along horizontal direction ($c_h$). In case of nonhomogeneous clay the cohesion of the undrained clay has been considered to be increased with depth below ground surface keeping $c_v/c_h=1$. The results are presented in terms of pullout capacity factor ($F_{c0}=p_u/c_H$) where $p_u$ is the ultimate pullout stress along the anchor plate at failure and $c_H$ is the cohesion in horizontal direction at the level of the middle point of the anchor plate. It is observed that the pullout capacity factor increases with an increase in anisotropic cohesion ratio ($c_v/c_h$) whereas the pullout capacity factor decreases with an increase in undrained cohesion of the soil with depth.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.45-59
• /
• 1983

This study aims at investigating the deformation and strength characteristics on reconsolidated-remoleded saturated clay sampled at the downstream of Young-san river, in Cheollanamdo through a series of both drained and underained triaxial tests by means of the critical state concept. Among several constitutive equations developed so far, the Cam-clay model, the modified Cam-clay model and the dilatancy model are used. The prediction of strains is obtained and the value of prediction is compared with that of observation. For the clay specimen, the prediction of volumetric strain on the dilatancy model is well consistent with the observation and the prediction of shear strain on the modified Cam-clay model coincides exactly with the observation.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.3 no.2
• /
• pp.131-151
• /
• 2011

The electrical conductivity of a soil-water system is related to its engineering properties. By measuring the soil electrical conductivity, one may obtain quantitative, semi-quantitative, or qualitative information to estimate the in-situ soil behavior for site characterization. This paper presents the results of electrical conductivity measured on compacted kaolin clay samples using a circular two-electrode cell in conjunction with a specially designed compaction apparatus, which has the advantage of reducing errors due to sample handling and increasing measurement accuracy. The experimental results are analyzed to observe the effects of various parameters on soil electrical conductivity, i.e. porosity, unit weight, water content and pore water salinity. The performance of existing analytical models for predicting the electrical conductivity of saturated and unsaturated soils is evaluated by calculating empirical constants in these models. It is found that the Rhoades model gives the best fit for the kaolin clay investigated. Two general relationships between the formation factor and soil porosity are established based on the experimental data reported in the literature and measured from this study for saturated soils, which may provide insight for understanding electrical conduction characteristics of soils over a wide range of porosity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.561-573
• /
• 2020

The creep and consolidation behaviors of clays subjected to thermal cycles are of fundamental importance in the application of energy geostructures. This study aims to numerically investigate the physical mechanisms for the temperature-triggered volume change of saturated clays. A recently developed thermodynamic framework is used to derive the thermo-mechanical constitutive model for clays. Based on the model, a fully coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) finite element (FE) code is developed. Comparison with experimental observations shows that the proposed FE code can well reproduce the irreversible thermal contraction of normally consolidated and lightly overconsolidated clays, as well as the thermal expansion of heavily overconsolidated clays under drained heating. Simulations reveal that excess pore pressure may accumulate in clay samples under triaxial drained conditions due to low permeability and high heating rate, resulting in thermally induced primary consolidation. Results show that four major mechanisms contribute to the thermal volume change of clays: (i) the principle of thermal expansion, (ii) the decrease of effective stress due to the accumulation of excess pore pressure, (iii) the thermal creep, and (iv) the thermally induced primary consolidation. The former two mechanisms mainly contribute to the thermal expansion of heavily overconsolidated clays, whereas the latter two contribute to the noticeable thermal contraction of normally consolidated and lightly overconsolidated clays. Consideration of the four physical mechanisms is important for the settlement prediction of energy geostructures, especially in soft soils.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.707-721
• /
• 2017

The objective of this paper is to experimentally study the consolidation of saturated silty clay subjected to repeated heating-cooling cycles using a modified temperature-controlled triaxial apparatus. Focus is placed on the influence of the water content, confining pressure, and magnitudes and number of thermal loading cycles. The experimental results show that the thermally induced pore pressure increases with increasing water content and magnitude of thermal loading in undrained conditions. After isothermal consolidation at an elevated temperature, the pore pressure continues to decrease and gradually falls below zero during undrained cooling, and the maximum negative pore pressure increases as the water content decreases or the magnitude of thermal loading increases. During isothermal consolidation at ambient temperature after one heating-cooling cycle, the pore pressure begins to rise due to water absorption and finally stabilizes at approximately zero. As the number of thermal loading cycles increases, the thermally induced pore pressure shows a degrading trend, which seems to be more apparent under a higher confining pressure. Overall, the specimens tested show an obvious volume reduction at the completion of a series of heating-cooling cycles, indicating a notable irreversible thermal consolidation deformation.