Abstract
It has been known from the conventional oedometer test that considerable settlement is observed after the end of primary consolidation, i.e., under the constant effective stresses. One of the most controversial issues in the geotechnical engineering is whether such secondary compression is taking place during and/or after the dissipation of the excess pore water pressure. Using the Pleistocene clays recovered from the Osaka basin, Long Term Consolidation (LTC) and Inter-Connected Oedometer (ICO) tests were carried out. This paper presents the consolidation behavior measured by the ICO and the companion paper will deal with the findings obtained by the LTC. The main advantage of the ICO test is its ability to investigate the influences of drainage path length under conditions of relatively small friction between the specimen and the oedometer ring. It was found that dissipation of the excess pore water pressure follows the H2 rule, regardless of the relative stress range, i.e., at over- or normally consolidated state, where the H is the thickness of the specimen. However, the generated strain at overconsolidated state does not follow the H2 rule. These test results were tried to be explained by the strain rate theory.
