Field Evaluation of Undrained Shear Strength from Piezocone Penetration Tests in Soft Marine Clay

The use of the piezocone penetration test (CPTU) in a geotechnical site investigation offers direct field measurement on stratigraphy and soil behavior. Compared with some traditional investigation methods, such as drilling, sampling and field inspecting method or laboratory test procedures, CPTU can greatly accelerate the field work and hereby reduce corresponding operation cost. The undrained shear strength is a key parameter in estimation of the stability of natural slopes and deformation of embankments in soft clays. This paper provides the measurements of in situ CPTU, field vane testing and laboratory undrained triaxial testing of Lianyungang marine clay in Jiangsu province of China. Based on the literature review of previous interpretation methods, this paper presents a comparison of field vane testing measurements to CPTU interpretation results. The undrained shear strength values from both the field vane tests and cone penetration resistances are lowest at the mid-depths of the marine clay layers, and the excess pore water pressures are highest at the mid-depths of the marine clay layers, indicating that the marine clay layer is underconsolidated.     

Vertical Variability of the Undrained Shear Strength of Golden Horn Clay

In this study, a stochastic method was applied to investigate if there exists a statistical correlation between values of undrained shear strength at various vertical distances along Golden Horn. Therefore, the undrained shear strength values measured by field vane shear tests at different depths were used to determine the depth dependent variation of the mean value and standard deviation. Futhermore, autocorrelation functions were defined to describe the correlation between values of c_u at different depths. The study showed that the applied method might provide a statistical range to estimate the undrained shear strength value at depths where no measurements are undertaken.     

Evaluation of the Strength Increase of Marine Clay under Staged Embankment Loading: A Case Study

This article presents a case history of the performance of a full-scale test embankment constructed on a marine soft clay deposit improved by prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) in the east of China. For analyzing the subsoil behavior, a 2D FEM model is established, in which the PVD-improved effect is considered by a simplified method of equivalent vertical hydraulic conductivity. The calculated results can predict the settlement behavior well; however, the FEM gives an underestimate for the value of excess pore pressures and it predicts similar values for the dissipation rate of excess pore pressures. The measured undrained shear strength of subsoil, C_u, is compared with the predicted value based on Ladd’s empirical equation and the Modified Cam-Clay model (MCC). The shear strength predicted by Ladd’s equation agrees well with the measured value, whereas the MCC overestimates the ability to improve subsoil shear strength during consolidation. The undrained shear strength of subsoil, C_u, increased as the construction progressed, and the shear strength incremental ratio, ΔC_u/Δp′, decreased slightly with the degree of consolidation, U.