This paper examines the relationship between the microstructure and chemical properties of soft Bangladesh clays due to cementation. The microstructure was investigated using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, pH measurement, specific surface area and soil chemical tests. The results indicate that a multitude of changes occurred in the properties and behavior of cement-treated clays that can be explained by the interaction between four underlying microstructural mechanisms. That is, it is suggested that the hydrated lime is formed by hydration, which causes the flocculation of the little clay particles, by the preferential attack of the calcium ions on kaolinite rather than on illite and monmorillinite in the pozzolanic reaction, by surface deposition and shallow infilling by cementitious products such as calcium silicate hydrate and calcium alumino silicate hydrate (CSH and CASH) on clay clusters, and finally, by the presence of water trapped within the clay clusters. The chemical properties of the cement-treated clays were found to depend on the plasticity of soil.

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A distinctive characteristic of the reliquefaction behavior of soils is that there are instances where the phenomenon of a sharp decrease in liquefaction resistance occurs in spite of increases in soil density caused by drainage of water after liquefaction. On the other hand, there have also been examples of increased liquefaction resistance occurring throughout a soil's liquefaction history that cannot be explained merely by density increases. These facts point to the existence of factors other than density that sway the liquefaction resistance of soils. The current paper demonstrates that, in fact, anisotropy is an important factor influencing liquefaction resistance. This is made clear through the results of systematic triaxial shear tests, which show that the higher the level of developed anisotropy, the lower the liquefaction resistance. In the process of verifying the above, we found that continuous and orderly changes in anisotropy are repeated with dizzying rapidity during liquefaction. Furthermore, we show herein that there is no intrinsic difference between the inherent anisotropy acquired by soil during its sedimentation period and the induced anisotropy produced by plastic deformation developed through its stress history, although anisotropy has often been divided into these two types and has been considered separately in the past. We also show that what has been referred to as inherent anisotropy is nothing more than the initial state of induced anisotropy.

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Most of the experimental investigations conducted on unsaturated soil have been performed under a constant air pressure. Changes in air pressure during deformation are in some cases important in practice. For example, in order to explain the stability problems of embankments during earthquakes and seepage flow, and grounds containing gas associated with the dissociation of methane hydrates, it is necessary to consider the interaction between the soil and the pore fluids. In the present study, we carried out fully undrained tests as well as drained tests, namely, constant water and constant air shearing tests. We performed the fully undrained tests using an air-controlled valve to measure the pore air pressure. For the stress variables of the unsaturated soil, skeleton stress values were used to describe the experimental results. From triaxial compression tests on silty soil, we found that the initial suction, the confining pressure, and the strain rate of unsaturated soil strongly influence the stress-strain behavior of unsaturated silt.

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A series of triaxial compressive tests were performed on frozen sandy clay at -4 and -6°C under confining pressures from 0 to 18 MPa. The experimental results indicate that the stress-strain curves show strain softening and hardening phenomena when the confining pressures are below and above 3.0 MPa, respectively. Since the generally hyperbolic model can not describe the strain hardening behavior very well and the Duncan-Chang model can not ideally describe the strain softening behavior of the frozen sandy clay, an improved Duncan-Chang model is proposed. This model can describe not only the strain softening behavior but also the strain hardening behavior of the frozen sandy clay, and the calculated results are rather coincident with the corresponding experimental data. In addition, it is also suitable for frozen silty clay with a high precision. Due to pressure melting, the shear strength of the frozen sandy clay changes nonlinearly with increasing confining pressures. In order to solve the problem that the linear Mohr-Coulomb criteria can not exactly reflect the shear strength of the frozen sandy clay, a nonlinear Mohr criteria of the frozen sandy clay is presented. The calculated results illustrate that it has higher precision and can describe the shear strength of frozen sandy soils more accurately than the linear Mohr-Coulomb criteria does.

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The purpose of these field and lab studies undertaken during rehabilitation work being done on an ancient railway line was to characterize a layer of ballast fouled with soil found in the track substructure. The field studies included the characterization of the thickness, grain size distribution and void ratio of the fouled ballast layer, as well as a large number of plate load tests, both on the fouled ballast layer and on the subgrade. The resilient behaviour of the fouled ballast was evaluated in the lab by cyclic triaxial tests on large size reconstituted specimens with distinct fouling indexes (different grain size distribution) and distinct humidity states (dry or wet). The results obtained were used as support for the decision to maintain the fouled ballast layer under the new sub-ballast in a number of stretches of the renewed line.

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A series of experimental and analytical studies on the behaviours of model pile groups and model piled rafts in dry sand subjected to static vertical loading and static cyclic horizontal loading were carried out in order to investigate the influence of various pile head connection conditions between the raft and the piles on the behaviours of the foundations models and to examine the applicability of an simplified analytical method to simulate the load tests. In the load tests, the behaviours of the model foundations were investigated in detail, with particular focus on cyclic horizontal loading, and behaviour such as horizontal stiffness and the rotation of the foundation, the load proportions between the raft and the piles, and the bending moments and shear forces generated in the piles. A simplified three-dimensional deformation analysis method was used to simulate the experiments.

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Rainfall is one of the most critical factors with regard to slope instability. In this paper, the effect of seepage flow on slope stability is investigated by means of a strength reduction method. It is demonstrated that the factor of safety (FOS) for a sandy soil slope is influenced by seepage flow more than other types of soil. If the pore pressure is generated by the use of a piezometric line, the FOS is smaller than that generated by seepage flow analysis. The difference is small for clayey soil slopes but is larger and more noticeable for sandy soil slopes. The analysis also shows that the installation of retaining walls to increase the length of the seepage path is effective to prevent slope failure induced by seepage flow. The effects of water flow on soil nailed slopes, locally loaded slopes and pile reinforced slopes are also investigated in this study. The present study also shows that the effect of densely populated soil nail on the seepage flow can be neglected for practical purposes.

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Sample disturbance caused by difference in sampling tube geometry was evaluated by two nondestructive methods: the measurement of the residual effective stress (p_r') by ceramic disc; and the use of the bender element to ascertain the shear wave velocity (V_s), and thus the maximum shear modulus (G_BE). Samples were measured under atmosphere, i.e., not under confined stress conditions. The soil samples were obtained from two sources: reconstituted Kasaoka clay prepared in the laboratory, and at the test site at Takuhoku, Hokkaido, Japan. Samplers with different geometrical designs, referring to the Japanese standard stationary piston sampler, were used for the model ground and field sampling. The geometrical effects of the sampling tube, for example, the thickness of the tube wall, the edge angle, and the existence of a piston were carefully examined. The quality of the samples taken with different samplers was evaluated by p_r' and G_BE, values which were normalized by the in situ vertical effective stress (σ'_vo) and G_f measured by the seismic cone test in the field. It was found from these studies that p_r'/σ'_vo and G_BE/G_f vary considerably due to the geometry of the sampler, with the edge angle of sampling tubes being the most important feature in obtaining high quality samples. The wall thickness, and thus, the area ratio of the sampler is not critical to the sample quality if the edge angle is sharp enough. The existence of the piston does not significantly influence the sample quality in field samples. Furthermore, the correlation between G_BE and p_r' was also investigated, and it was found that the two parameters are strongly dependent.

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A simple method that utilizes the results of laboratory tests has been proposed for determining the susceptibility of soft clay grounds to large residual consolidation settlement due to embankment loading. It was found that there is a possibility of large long-term settlement if the sensitivity and compression index ratios of the clay material that constitutes the ground are equal to or more than 8.0 and 1.5, respectively. The compression index ratio is defined in this paper as the ratio (Cc/Ccr) of the steepest gradient of the compression curve of an undisturbed sample to that of the remolded sample. Through the SYS Cam-clay model, an elasto-plastic constitutive model that describes the actions of the soil skeleton structure, it was found that clays with large sensitivity and compression index ratios are characterized by initially highly structured soils and that decay/upgradation of the structure can easily occur due to plastic deformation. In addition, by following Schmertmann's graphic method for in-situ compression curve (1953), this paper proposes a method of deducing the in-situ initial conditions from the results of laboratory consolidation tests on undisturbed samples. These investigations revealed not only that large delayed settlement is facilitated in clays, which have higher degrees of structure and faster rates of structural decay, but also that the Δe method and other simple methods of predicting settlement may underestimate the amount of settlement.

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The air permeability coefficient and the radius of vacuum influence are important parameters in the design of soil vapor extraction systems for removing volatile organic chemicals, but procedures for obtaining these parameters have not yet been established. We developed procedures using previously derived analytical equations for the relationship between air discharge rates from an extraction well and the air pressure head generated in the neighborhood of the extraction well in soil with a uniform degree of water saturation in order to obtain these parameters in soil with varying degrees of water saturation. We verified that these procedures could be used to obtain these parameters by using air permeability test data from five sites. In addition, we demonstrated that these procedures could also be applied to gravel soil with fast air flow.

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Diffusion, dispersion, and advection are important processes in multi-gas systems in soils. To date, both Fick's model and the Dusty Gas (DG) model have been used to model the movement of gases in these systems. Dispersion is included in the dispersion-advection equation with Fick's Model for the movement of gases in gas-phase of soil, yet the movement of gases in multi-component gas-soil systems is considered to be expressed more accurately by the DG model than by Fick's model. However to date, no study has investigated the necessity of considering dispersion in the Dusty Gas (DG) model. We carried out column experiments for nitrogen-methane, nitrogen-carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide-methane binary gas systems in sandy soil, and also did simulations on the same systems using both Fick's model and the DG model. A comparison of the results of the column experiments with our simulations confirmed that there was no need to consider the dispersion in the advection-diffusion equations with the DG model when the velocity of gas was 0.05-0.4 cm/s in Toyoura sand. Furthermore, our experiments and simulations with the DG model showed that, rather than dispersion, tortuosity should be taken into account in application of the DG model to the above condition.

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The soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) of soil plays the key roll in unsaturated soil mechanics which is a relatively new field of study having wide applications particularly in Geotechnical and Geo-environmental Engineering. To encourage the geotechnical engineers to apply unsaturated soil mechanics theories in routine practice, numerical methods, based on the SWCC and saturated soil properties, have been developed to predict unsaturated permeability function and unsaturated shear strength properties which are expensive and time consuming to measure in laboratories. Further, several methods have been proposed to predict the SWCC in order to avoid difficulties in measuring the SWCC in laboratories. It is time consuming and it may require special techniques or apparatus to measure the SWCC in laboratories. However, it is important to have laboratory measured data of SWCCs to enhance and verify the proposed numerical methods. Hence, employing a Tempe pressure cell apparatus, the present study aims to investigate the effects of dry density and grain-size distribution on the SWCCs of sandy soils. Drying and wetting SWCCs were obtained for four sandy soils with different dry densities. The test data were best-fitted using the Fredlund and Xing (1994) equation and found that the fitting parameter, a, increases linearly with increasing the air-entry value of the SWCC and the fitting parameter, m, decreases with increasing the residual suction of the SWCC. The results revealed that soils with a low density have lower air-entry value and residual suction than soils with a high dry density. Further, the maximum slope of drying SWCC and hysteresis of drying and wetting SWCCs decrease with increasing density of soil. The air-entry value, residual suction, and hysteresis (the difference between the drying and wetting SWCCs) tends to decrease when the effective D₁₀ of the soil increases. A soil with uniform grain-size distribution (the steeper slope in grain-size distribution) has a less hysteresis and a greater slope of drying SWCC than those of a non-uniform soil.

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