Laboratory assessment of electro-osmotic stabilization of soft clay

2011 ◽  
Vol 48 (12) ◽  
pp. 1788-1802 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Jeyakanthan ◽  
C.T. Gnanendran ◽  
S.-C.R. Lo

The application of electro-osmosis (EO) for stabilizing soft clays is receiving more attention in geotechnical engineering. When the application of traditional ground improvement techniques, such as surcharge, pre-loading, wick drains, and vacuum pre-loading, is not appropriate for a particular situation, innovative techniques such as electro-osmosis need to be considered. Although the effectiveness of electro-osmosis has been widely demonstrated in many field applications, geotechnical engineers are still hesitant to apply electro-osmosis due to unknown effects such as electro-chemical changes, which could not be accounted for in the design. This paper presents a design of an electro-osmotic triaxial testing apparatus suitable for electro-osmotic treatment of soft clays and for measuring electro-osmotic permeability and generated pore-water pressure, as well as a testing procedure that accounts for the contribution of electro-chemical changes in the improvement of soil properties. A series of electro-osmotic triaxial tests with various initial stresses and boundary conditions were conducted and the results are presented in the paper.

1985 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Folkes ◽  
J. H. A. Crooks

Current methods of predicting the response of soft clays to surface loading are often unsuccessful because the assumed constitutive relationships, including effective stress path behaviour, are incorrect. In particular, the transition from small-strain to large-strain behaviour (i.e. yielding) is frequently not taken into account. Recent laboratory testing has demonstrated that the behaviour of soft clays is largely controlled by yielding. The locus of effective stress states causing yield is known as the yield envelope (YE).The effective stress paths (ESP's) in soft clay foundations below the centre of six fills were determined from computed total stresses and measured pore-water pressures. Yield behaviour is clearly indicated by ESP shapes. The yield envelopes inferred from analyses of field data are similar to those obtained from laboratory testing. Effective stress path shapes vary widely, depending on a variety of factors, including imposed stress level, rate of construction, and boundary drainage conditions. This finding contradicts an earlier conclusion that soft clay behaviour can be characterized by a single ESP. Because of the wide range of possible ESP shapes, the parameters [Formula: see text] does not provide an adequate basis for determining the effective stress state in a soft clay.The ESP/YE analyses indicate that yield can occur either during loading or during excess pore-water pressure dissipation following completion of loading. Yield of sensitive soils during loading is usually followed by strain softening. However, in some soils, dilatant behaviour appears to occur. Yield during dissipation of excess pore-water pressure is characterized by a dramatic change in cv and increased compressibility. Key words: soft clay, yield, effective stress paths, field behaviour, strain softening, rate of consolidation.


1994 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 773-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianhua Yin ◽  
James Graham ◽  
Jack I. Clark ◽  
Longjun Gao

Field observations in thin soft clay layers may show pore-water pressures that increase for some time after the loading is applied. Reasons for these observations are not well understood. The paper shows how an elastic viscoplastic constitutive model incorporated into the consolidation equation can predict these pore-water pressure increases in soils that exhibit significant creep behaviour (or secondary compression). The phenomenon has been related to relaxation in regions of the profile from which drainage has not yet begun. Key words : clay, consolidation, creep, secondary compression, viscous, relaxation, pore-water pressure, elastic–plastic.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yang Shen ◽  
Wen Shi ◽  
Shaoyu Li ◽  
Long Yang ◽  
Jianting Feng ◽  
...  

Chemical electro-osmosis with an injected saline solution can be described as an efficient method for adjusting the soil microstructure and improving soil conductivity, and the effect of electro-osmotic consolidation on soft foundations can also be improved by this novel technology in regard to foundation treatment. To better study the electro-osmotic characteristics of soft clay from Taizhou with different grouting solutions, a series of chemical electro-osmotic experiments concerning the injection of CaCl2, MgCl2, NaCl, KCl, and deionized water were conducted in the laboratory based on custom test devices. The actual treatment effects of these experiments were compared by monitoring the drainage, current, voltage, elemental mass fractions in the soil, and soil structure. The chemical electro-osmotic method was further studied from a theoretical perspective based on the inherent link between the macro- and microlevel indexes. The results of the model test indicated that the crystal structure of the soil changed from an initial flocculated structure to a granular or laminated structure with the injection of CaCl2 and MgCl2 saline. Na+ was hereby replaced by multicharged ions, which served as the key factor that affected both the drainage efficiency and conductivity of the electro-osmotic process. Moreover, a novel one-dimensional electro-osmotic consolidation equation was introduced that considered variations in the electro-osmotic permeability coefficient, which better illustrated how the excess pore water pressure was deduced when compared with Esrig’s consolidation equation. Furthermore, the results of this experiment may be adopted as a reference or as evidence for the subsequent promotion and application of the electro-osmosis method.


2013 ◽  
Vol 438-439 ◽  
pp. 1171-1175
Author(s):  
Zhi Li Sui ◽  
Zhao Guang Li ◽  
Xu Peng Wang ◽  
Wen Li Li ◽  
Tie Jun Xu

Dynamic consolidation method has been widely used in improving soft land, but always inefficient to saturated soft clay land, which is hard to improve, and even leads to rubber soil. Dynamic and drain consolidation method will deal with it well, with drainage system, pore-water can be expelled instantly from saturated soft clay as impacting. The pore-water pressure and earth pressure test in construction, the standard penetration test, plate loading test, geotechnical test after construction, which are all effective methods for effect testing. There is a comprehensive detection through different depth of soil layer with different detecting means on construction site. The results show that improving saturated soft clay land with dynamic and drain consolidation method has obtained good effect, and the fruit can be guidance for such construction in the future.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368-370 ◽  
pp. 1697-1700
Author(s):  
Long Zhang ◽  
Xue Wen Lei ◽  
Qing Shang Meng

Based on the characteristics of frequent land subsidence events caused by groundwater level fluctuation in coastal cities in China and studying on the quaternary sedimentary soft clay in Shanghai, the effects of groundwater level fluctuation on the deformation of soft clay is simulated by Geo-Studio finite element software. It has summarized the law of deformation, effective stress with the change of groundwater level fluctuation, especially the process of dissipation of pore water pressure with the groundwater level fluctuation. The low can be sued as a reference for similar engineering and land subsidence prevention.


2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Nima Alkhorshid ◽  
Gregório Araújo ◽  
Ennio Palmeira

The use of granular column is one of the ground improvement methods used for soft soils. This method improves the foundation soils mechanical properties by displacing the soft soil with the compacted granular columns. The columns have high permeability that can accelerate the excess pore water pressure produced in soft soils and increase the undrained shear strength. When it comes to very soft soils, the use of granular columns is not of interest since these soils present no significant confinement to the columns. Here comes the encased columns that receive the confinement from the encasement materials. In this study, the influence of the column installation method on the surrounding soil and the encasement effect on the granular column performance were investigated using numerical analyses and experimental tests. The results show that numerical simulations can reasonably predict the behavior of both the encased column and the surrounding soil.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1030-1032 ◽  
pp. 1037-1040
Author(s):  
Jin Fang Hou ◽  
Ju Chen ◽  
Jian Yu

The artificial island ground on an open sea is covered by thick soft soil. It must be improved before using. In accordance with a designing scheme, the ground treatment method is inserting drain boards on land and jointed dewatering surcharge preloading, the residual settlement is not more than 30cm after improvement and the average consolidation degree is more than 85%. In order to estimate ground improvement effect and construction safety, instruments are buried to monitor the whole ground improving processes. By monitoring settlement and pore water pressure, it is shown that the total ground settlement in construction is 2234mm, its final settlement is 2464mm, and consolidation degree and residual settlement respectively satisfy requirements. In ground improvement, horizontal displacement is small and construction is safe. Meanwhile, the results of soil properties and vane shear strength detection tests show the soft soil ground is greatly reduced in water content and porosity ratio, and improved in strength. It is named that the ground improvement method is reasonable and reaches expected effect.


2019 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 08008
Author(s):  
Bozana Bacic ◽  
Ivo Herle

Time-consuming and complicated investigations of soil liquefaction in cyclic triaxial tests are the most common way of laboratory analysis of this phenomenon. Moreover, the necessary equipment for the performance of cyclic triaxial tests is very expensive. Much simpler method for laboratory testing of the soil liquefaction has been developed at the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering at the TU Dresden. This method takes into account the pore water pressure build-up during cyclic shearing within a short time period. During the test, the soil sample is subjected to horizontal cyclic loading and the generated pore water pressure is measured. In the first series of these experiments, a dependence of the pore water pressure buildup on the initial density of soil could be observed, as expected. When comparing different soils, it is shown that the tendency to liquefaction depends also on the granulometric properties (e.g. grain size distribution) of the soil. The aim of the further development is to establish a simple identification test for laboratory testing of the soil liquefaction.


2015 ◽  
Vol 773-774 ◽  
pp. 1502-1507
Author(s):  
Saiful Azhar Ahmad Tajudin ◽  
Mohd Fairus Yusof ◽  
I. Bakar ◽  
Aminaton Marto ◽  
Muhammad Nizam Zakaria ◽  
...  

Construction, buildings and infrastructure founded on soft clays are often affected by settlement problem. Therefore, Prefabricated Vertical Drain (PVD) is one of the best solutions to accelerate soil consolidation by shortening the drainage path. In this study, numerical investigation was carried out to pursue a better understanding of the consolidation behavior of soft clay improved with PVD. The consolidation process accelerated by PVD with surcharge of 50 kPa was analysed using the ABAQUS software by adopting an elastic model. The aim of this study is to compare the settlement and the required time to fully consolidate the soft soil at different drain spacings (1.0 m, 1.5 m and 2.0 m) for two different thickness of the clay layer. The results shows that the time required to completely consolidate the soft soil for 12 m and 20 m thickness of clay layer with different spacings are in the range of 3 months to 66 months. The settlement rate and excess pore water pressure dissipation are increased when the spacing of the drain closer.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerd Gudehus

AbstractWhile Terzaghi justified his principle of effective stress for water-saturated soil empirically, it can be derived by means of the neutrality of the mineral with respect to changes of the pore water pressure $$p_w$$ p w . This principle works also with dilating shear bands arising beyond critical points of saturated grain fabrics, and with patterns of shear bands as relics of critical phenomena. The shear strength of over-consolidated clay is explained without effective cohesion, which results also from swelling up to decay, while rapid shearing of water-saturated clay can lead to a cavitation of pore water. The $$p_w$$ p w -neutrality is also confirmed by triaxial tests with sandstone samples, while Biot’s relation with a reduction factor for $$p_w$$ p w is contestable. An effective stress tensor is heuristically legitimate also for soil and rock with relics of critical phenomena, particularly for critical points with a Mohr–Coulomb condition. Therein, the $$p_w$$ p w -neutrality of the solid mineral determines the interaction of solid fabric and pore water, but numerical models are questionable due to fractal features.


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