Experimental evaluation of shear strength behaviour of plastic and non-plastic silts

Silt is available in many parts of the world in combination with sands and clays. However, due to lack of clear understanding of its engineering behaviour, most of the time it is interpreted in terms of either sands or clays. Structures that are usually built on silty soils are designed to take into account design procedures developed for sandy or clayey soils. Presence of silts in combination with varying amount of sand and clays produces silt that is either plastic or non-plastic in nature. Silt is available in and around the Delhi region, in a majority mixture along with fine sands, which is non-plastic in nature. On the other hand silty deposits found in offshore Bombay High region are found in abundance along with significant amounts of clays and are termed as plastic silts. In this paper a comparison of the stress-strain behaviour of plastic and non-plastic silts is carried out under triaxial compression loading during both drained and undrained conditions. Two representative samples each from Delhi and Bombay High regions were considered for this comparison and results of stress-strain under four sets of confining pressure are discussed in detail. It is observed from this study that behaviour of silts is mainly dependent on the composition and structure of the resultant soil matrix. It is concluded from the results that shear strength parameters as well as volume change/pore pressure response of silty soils is dominated by the constituent soil present along with the silt. It is seen from the comparative behaviour of non-plastic and plastic silts that the presence of sand and clays has a governing effect on pore pressure development and the resultant friction angle. The study also corroborated that the nature of silt is transitional both in the case of plastic and non-plastic forms.     

不适当筑堤围垸对洞庭湖区环境的影响

洞庭湖区堤防是湖区人民为了拓展生存空间与水争地而采取的一种工程建筑措施。它在为湖区人民增加土地资源的同时,也带来了一系列的环境问题。在1949年至1985年期间,由于人口迅速增长,土地不够用,在国家政策的鼓励下,人们开始在洞庭湖区盲目地开发湿地,大量修筑堤防、围湖造田,使人类赖以生存和持续发展的环境基础遭到破坏,造成严重后果。文章通过大量资料,对洞庭湖区自1949年以来大规模的修筑堤防后,几十年间产生的泥沙淤积变化情况、汛期洪水位变化情况、湖域面积及湖容积的变化、湖泊调蓄功能的变化情况、洪涝灾害发生频率及灾情损失情况、环境地质灾害隐患增加情况等进行了统计分析,从环境地质的角度论述了因不适当的修筑堤防对洞庭湖区环境产生的负面影响。     

Quantifying particle aggregation in sediments

Sediments often occur as non‐normal size distributions composed of discrete, partially aggregated particle populations. These populations reflect provenance, dispersal pathways and their depositional environments. Recent experimental laboratory studies describing mud flocculation in turbulent marine systems prompted this investigation of the potential of aggregates to record size‐sensitive transport dynamics in a terrestrial fluvial system. Here, sediment‐size distributions in their natural condition of particle–aggregate mixtures are analysed by parametric statistics. A practical and freely available decompositional approach is outlined and field tested, which allows sediment to be viewed in both its conventional particulate form and as its naturally occurring mixture of transport‐stable aggregates and elementary particles. From a sequence of upward‐fining slack water couplets in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia, it is demonstrated that the characteristics, provenance and depositional history of fine‐grained sediments consisting of particle‐aggregate mixtures can best be understood fully by quantifying aggregation.     

Quaternary lacustrine deposits in a high-energy semi-arid mountain environment,Karakoram Mountains,northern Pakistan

Impressive Quaternary lacustrine deposits are present as terrace remnants throughout the Karakoram Mountains, northern Pakistan. They are mainly the result of damming of drainage systems during glacial advances or by catastrophic mass movement deposits. The longevity of most lakes is relatively short, in the order of years to tens of years, but sedimentation rates are extremely high as a consequence of the high sediment loads within the rivers. This results in deposits that frequently exceed 10 m in thickness. The sediments comprise dominantly planar bedded, massive and, less commonly, planar laminated, silts, comprising detrital quartz, feldspar, mica, calcite, chlorite and illite. A facies model for lacustrine sedimentation in a high-energy semi-arid high mountain region is presented, using case studies from a glacially dammed palaeolake (Glacial Lake Gilgit) and a debris-flow dammed palaeolake (Lake Serat). The rapid deposition and absence of organic material restricts the usefulness of these lacustrine sediments as proxies for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, but they are helpful in reconstructing the former extent of glaciers and illustrating the importance of high-magnitude–low-frequency events, such as landsliding, as formative processes contributing to the evolution of the Karakoram landscape.     

Distinction between sortable silts and aggregated particles in muddy intertidal sediments of the East Frisian Wadden Sea, southern North Sea

In muddy sediments, the distinction between sortable silt and aggregated silty clay is important for the understanding of fine particle dynamics because both have different hydraulic properties. The Wadden Sea of the southern North Sea is severely depleted in fine-grained sediments mainly due to high energy levels along the diked coastline. As a result, muddy sediments are restricted to a narrow belt along the diked mainland shore. In the present study, the mechanism by which this mud is deposited and how floc deposition and break-up are reflected in the size distribution, has been investigated. For this purpose, surficial sediments from four intertidal nearshore transects were monitored and repeatedly sampled in the course of two years. High-resolution grain-size analyses were performed by an automated settling tube and a Sedigraph particle analyser for the sand and mud fractions, respectively.The grain size frequency distributions of the fine fractions demonstrate that the Wadden Sea muds are composed of two subpopulations, a well-sorted coarse silt and an unsorted silty clay population. A depletion of grain size around 8 μm (7 phi) demarcates the grain-size boundary between the two populations, suggesting that the finer mud population (< 8 μm) is deposited in the form of flocs and aggregates which are hydraulically equivalent to the local sands and coarser silts. Floc break-up and reconstitution in response to seasonally changing energy regimes lead to apparent seasonal sedimentation patterns in the back-barrier tidal basins. Furthermore, in the course of sample preparation, the flocs and aggregates are broken down into their constituent particles. This mechanical artefact in the size distributions produces an artificial seasonal fining/coarsening pattern. It was found that the comparison of clay/silt and < 8 μm/63 − 8 μm particle ratios are good indicators of floc behaviour. Higher ratios are found in mixed flats which are relatively protected from wave action, thereby promoting deposition of flocs. In addition, progressive size sorting and mixing processes along the transects are recognized in the frequency distributions of sands. The skewness pattern shows a landward decrease in positive values, which is exactly opposite to previously reported patterns, suggesting progressive winnowing of fine particles caused by increased wave action over the last decade. This effect of climate change further promotes depletion of fine-grained sediments in the basin.     

Liquefaction characteristics of silts

Summary The paper presents a summary of the results of cyclical triaxial load testing of samples of silt and silty sands. The paper emphasizes differences in behaviour observed between reconstituted triaxial samples of clean sand, of sand containing 10, 20, 30 and 60% silt, pure silt, and undisturbed samples of silt and silty sand. An important observation is that the mechanisms of deformation for sit are different for reconstituted and undisturbed samples, the undisturbed sample having a specific geological structure which seems to slow down the excess pore water pressure accumulation, but which still results in cyclic deformations regularly increasing from the very beginning of the test and rapidly reaching high levels. The other important observation is that fine-grained noncohesive soils such as silts and silty sands can be as, or even more, susceptible to liquefaction as clean sands. Test results on samples of sand containing 10, 20 or 30% of silt indicate lesser resistance to liquefaction than pure sand samples. The paper shows the difficulty in identifying a representative parameter to compare the behaviour of silts and silty sands with pure sand, and it seems that more research will be needed in this area.     

饱和尾矿粉土动力特性试验研究

通过动三轴试验研究某尾矿粉土的动强度特性与孔压特性,试验在围压100、200和300kPa与固结比1.0和2.0条件下进行。结果表明:(1)在循环荷载作用下,等压固结时饱和尾矿粉土全部液化;偏压固结时饱和尾矿粉土未发生液化;(2)各向等压固结时,选取双幅动应变达到5%作为破坏标准;偏压固结时,选取总应变达到5%作为破坏标准;(3)围压越大,τd/σ′0-Nf曲线越高,动剪应力比τd/σ′0与破坏振次Nf在对数坐标图上表现出良好的线性关系,可以采用对数函数来拟合τd/σ′0-Nf关系曲线;(4)固结应力条件相同时,动应力σd变化对尾中砂的孔压增长ud/σ0-N/Nf关系曲线基本上没有影响;固结应力比Kc一定时,固结围压σ3越大,ud/σ′0-N/Nf关系曲线越高;(5)尾矿粉土孔压发展模式在等压固结和偏压固结时不同,固结比Kc=1.0时,可采用幂函数表达式来描述尾粉土孔压发展;固结比Kc=2.0时,可用对数函数来模拟其发展。