Abstract
Accurate prediction of the settlements for quasi-overconsolidated clay beds with structures is required. Various consolidation tests were carried out on natural clays with different levels of structures by various factors in order to investigate their consolidation characteristics. Based on the experimental results, a new index is introduced to evaluate the level of structure quantitatively. It is shown that the conditions for creep yielding and compression yielding are identical, and then compressibility of natural clays depends on the soil structure index at yielding. In addition, it is demonstrated that strain rate dependency of compression curves and secondary compression index can be evaluated from plastic chart quantitatively.
