Strength Sensitivity of Marine Ariake Clays

Natural Ariake clays are characterized by high sensitivity. In this study, the mechanism and the factors controlling undrained shear strengths of both undisturbed and remolded Ariake clays are discussed. A series of unconfined compressive tests were performed on undisturbed samples of natural Ariake clays. The remolded undrained shear strength is predicted using a quantitative expression derived from extensive data of remolded undrained shear strength for a number of soils compiled from resources in the literature. The sensitivity of natural Ariake clays derived from the ratio of half of unconfined compressive strength for undisturbed samples to remolded undrained shear strength is found to be affected by both natural water content and normalized water content that is defined as the ratio of natural water content to liquid limit. The smaller the natural water content, the higher the sensitivity is at the same normalized water content. At the same natural water content, the larger the normalized water content, the higher the sensitivity is.