Modeling Virgin Compression of Reconstituted Clay at Different Initial Water Contents

The observations on compressibility of reconstituted clays show that the compression line with a higher initial water content lies above the compression line with a lower initial water content for a given clay. Hence there exists additional void ratio due to initial water contents among virgin compression lines (VCLs) of reconstituted clays. In this paper, the difference in void ratio caused by different initial water contents is investigated based on the empirical equation proposed by Liu and Carter (2000) for describing the differential void ratio at the same stress between natural and reconstituted clays. The mechanism of compressibility of reconstituted clays, when the stress level is larger than the remolded yield stress, is also discussed.