Study on Acceleration of Consolidation of Soft Clay

Abstract

There are many soil stabilization methods which have been applied to improve inferior ground. This paper deals with a new method, called“partial-drain method”, in which high permeable and discontinuous materials were uniformly added into the clay to accelerate the consolidation. The results of laboratory tests by this method showed that there were many fragments which had a remarkably good influence on the consolidation and the shearing resistance of the improved clay. Some material properties of fragments, such as their absorpting characteristics, their specific gravities and their states of distribution in the clay were also discussed.
The main results obtained are as follows.
(1) The coefficients of consolidation and permeability of the improved clay were about 2.0∼4.0 times as much as that of the unimproved clay.
(2) The shearing resistance of improved clay was about 1.6∼1.7 times as much as that of the unimproved clay.
(3) The dispersing characteristics of fragments in the clay was improved by adding carboxymethyl cellulose (panfloc).