Dynamic characteristics of marine soft clay under variable phase difference and initial static shear stress

Abstract

Under seismic loading, the soil layer is subjected to multidirectional cyclic shear stress with different amplitudes and frequencies because of the coupling of multiple shear waves and the soil element within a slope or behind a retaining wall is subjected to initial static shear stress before subjected to cyclic loading. Due to the complexity of seismic loading propagation, a phase difference exists between the initial static shear stress and cyclic shear stress. To investigate the influence of the phase difference and initial static shear stress on cyclic shear strain, cyclic modulus, and cyclic strength, a series of laboratory tests are performed on Wenzhou marine soft clay by multi-directional simple shear system, which can simulate the actual state better by controlling the horizontal cyclic stress in the x and y directions simultaneously. As the phase difference varies from 0° to 90°, the dynamic shear modulus increases and cyclic strain accumulation decreases with an increasing number of cycles. The shear strain increases with the initial shear stress.     

Undrained strength behaviour of a cemented marine clay under monotonic and cyclic loading

The paper presents the results of a series of monotonic and cyclic triaxial shear tests carried out to study the influence of the strain effect and load cycles on the undrained shear strength of a cemented marine clay from the East coast of India. The undrained shear strength of Indian coastal marine clay has been established from a detailed shear testing carried out in three phases. Undisturbed soil samples taken out from the seabed were used in the test. In the first part, a comprehensive monotonic shear testing has been carried out under both stress-controlled and strain rate-controlled conditions. In the second phase on identical soil specimen, undrained cyclic shear tests were carried out at various cyclic stress ratios (CSR) and these stress levels are chosen in such a way so that no failure occurred during testing. In the final phase post cyclic monotonic shear testing was conducted to qualitatively evaluate the damage caused by cyclic loading. The monotonic shear test results bring out the influence of cementation that can be detected by the stress-controlled test. The cyclic stress results are analysed in terms of CSR. Further, the results are correlated in terms of stress path.     

Behavior of Marine Clay Subjected to Cyclic Loading with Sustained Shear Stress

Foundations of offshore structures are designed to withstand a combination of static and cyclic loads due to ocean waves. Wave action on offshore structures can cause a significant amount of cyclic horizontal and vertical forces to be transmitted to the soil through the foundation. In all these cases, these cyclic loads are considered to be superimposed over the initial sustained static stress due to the self-weight of structures. This study considers various factors that influence the development of deformation and pore water pressure in a typical cemented marine clay. These results show that the sustained static shear stress significantly influences the strength and deformation behavior of marine clay under cyclic loading. Up to a certain range of sustained static stress, there is an improvement in strength during cyclic loading and the cyclic strains are greatly reduced.     

Behavior of Marine Clay Subjected to Cyclic Loading with Sustained Shear Stress

Foundations of offshore structures are designed to withstand a combination of static and cyclic loads due to ocean waves. Wave action on offshore structures can cause a significant amount of cyclic horizontal and vertical forces to be transmitted to the soil through the foundation. In all these cases, these cyclic loads are considered to be superimposed over the initial sustained static stress due to the self-weight of structures. This study considers various factors that influence the development of deformation and pore water pressure in a typical cemented marine clay. These results show that the sustained static shear stress significantly influences the strength and deformation behavior of marine clay under cyclic loading. Up to a certain range of sustained static stress, there is an improvement in strength during cyclic loading and the cyclic strains are greatly reduced.     

Degradation in Cemented Marine Clay Subjected to Cyclic Compressive Loading

The influence of cyclic loading on the strength and deformation behavior of cemented marine clay has been studied. This marine clay is of recent Pleistocene origin and deposited in a shallow water marine environment. Open pits were dug in sheeted enclosures and from these pits, undisturbed samples were taken for strength testing. A series of standard triaxial shear tests and stress controlled one-way cyclic load tests were conducted at consolidation stress ranges below and above the preconsolidation pressure. For the stress levels below the preconsolidation pressure, the cyclic loading has brought about the collapse of the cementation bond through an increase in strains, and at higher pressure ranges, the soil behaves like typical soft clay. This experiment studied the rate of development of strain and pore water pressure and shows that rate is a function of number of cycles, applied stress, and stress history. In addition, soil degradation during cyclic loading is studied in terms of Degradation Index. Attempt has been made to predict stain, pore water pressure, and degradation index through an empirical model.     

Behaviour of rigid piles in marine clays under lateral cyclic loading

In the field of ocean engineering, pile foundations are extensively used in supporting several structures. In many cases, piles are subjected to significant lateral loads. The environment prevalent in the ocean necessitates the piles to be designed for cyclic wave loading. In this investigation, the behaviour of rigid piles under cyclic lateral loading has been studied through an experimental programme carried out on model piles embedded in a soft marine clay. Static tests were also conducted on piles embedded in a clay bed prepared at different consistencies suitable to field situations. Cyclic load was applied by using a specially designed pneumatic controlled loading system. Tests were conducted on model piles made of mild steel (MS), aluminium and PVC with wide variation in pile soil relative stiffness. For cyclic load levels less than 50% of static lateral capacity, the deflections are observed to increase with number of cycles and cyclic load level and stabilise after a certain number of cycles. For cyclic load levels greater than 50% of static lateral capacity, the deflections are observed to increase enormously with number of cycles. The results of post-cyclic load tests indicate that the behaviour under static load can improve for cyclic load levels less than 40% of the static lateral capacity. The variations in the load capacity due to cyclic loading are explained in terms of the changes in strength behaviour of soil.     

Undrained monotonic shear behavior of marine soft clay after long-term cyclic loading

Abstract

In the coastal area, nearshore and offshore structures have been or will be built in marine soft clay deposits that have experienced long-term cyclic loads. Therefore, the mechanical behavior of marine clay after long-term cyclic loading needs to be investigated. In this research, a series of monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests were carried out to investigate the postcyclic mechanical behavior of the marine soft clay. The postcyclic water pore pressure, shear strength and secant stiffness are discussed by comparing the results with the standard monotonic test (without cyclic loading). It is very interesting that the postcyclic behavior of marine soft clay specimen is similar to the behavior of overconsolidated specimen, that is, the specimen shows apparent overconsolidation behavior after long-term cyclic loading. Then relationship between the overconsolidation ratio and the apparent overconsolidation ratio is established on the basis of the theory of equivalent overconsolidation. Finally, a validation formula is proposed which can predict the postcyclic undrained shear strength of marine soft clay.     

Effect of angle between initial and cyclic shear stress on behaviors of marine clay

An angle exists between the initial static shear stress and cyclic shear stress when embankment and retaining walls are subjected to cyclic loadings. To investigate the influence of this angle on the dynamic properties of marine soft clay, tests were performed on Wenzhou soft clay. When the angle was varied from 0° to 90°, the shear strain and excess pore pressure decreased as θ increased while increased as θ increased from 120° to 180°. Shear strain developed more rapidly when θ was 120°, 150°, or 180° than that when θ was 0°, 30°, or 60°. These results indicate that the number of cycles to failure at the larger angles was greater than at the smaller angles. When θ was 90°, the strain in the x-axis direction increased as the number of cycles increased. The development of the excess pore pressure associated with specimen failure was different for different cyclic shear stress ratios and shearing angles. The effect of θ on the strain and excess pore pressure increased as the cyclic shear stress ratio increased.     

海洋粉质粘土在波浪荷载作用后的不排水抗剪强度衰化特性

通过对南海重塑粉质粘土土样的大量动三轴试验结果分析,得到此种土在波浪荷载作用后不捧水抗剪强度衰化同动载作用引起的动应变幅及平均累积孔压之间的相互关系和预估公式;并通过与超固结土样的静三轴剪切试验结果的比较,发现动、静三轴两种试验结果具有很好的吻合关系。建议可用超固结土样的静三轴剪切试验同时结合部分动三轴试验来预估土样在波浪荷载作用后不排水抗剪强度衰化与平均累积孔压之间的关系。     

深海能源土含气储层力学特性三轴试验研究

为研究深海能源土在负压开采过程中含气储层的力学特性,基于含气土赋存理论,提出一种能够控制含气量及气泡大小的制样方法,通过GDS标准应力路径三轴试验系统,开展深海能源土含气储层的固结排水试验研究,分析深海能源土在不同黏土含量及不同含气量下的力学响应规律。研究结果表明：围压变化对深海能源土含气储层的抗剪强度峰值大小影响显著,围压越大抗剪强度峰值越高;黏土含量是决定应力应变曲线变化趋势的关键影响因素,黏土含量越高试样抗剪强度越低,试样抵抗应变软化效应的能力越强;含气土比饱和土体承载能力更低,且承载能力随含气量的增大呈衰减趋势;黏土含量和含气量是深海能源土含气储层抗剪强度指标的重要影响因素,黏土含量、含气量越高,土体自身的总抗剪强度值越低。     

Behavior of a helical anchor under vertical repetitive loading

Abstract

In the field of ocean engineering, anchors are used for several purposes. This article studies the behavior of a helical anchor embedded in soft marine clay under vertical repetitive loading. Helical anchors are simple steel shafts to which one or more helical plates are attached at regular intervals. The tests are conducted on a model helical anchor installed in a soft marine clay bed prepared in a test tank. Repetitive loading is applied using a pneumatic loading arrangement. Different cyclic load ratios and time periods are adopted. In each test, after the application of repetitive loading, poststatic‐pullout tests are conducted to observe the effect of repetitive loading on anchor behavior. From the test results, it is found that, up to a cyclic load ratio of 55%, there is no reduction in capacity. Instead, there seems to be a marginal increase in capacity and reduction in displacement. The reasons for this behavior are explained in terms of induced changes in strength and deformation behavior of marine clay under repetitive load. However, at higher cyclic load ratios, there seems to be reduction in pullout capacity of the anchor, and the reason for this is explained in terms of strain criteria. From this investigation, it can be concluded that the deep anchor is more suitable to a marine environment than a shallow anchor.     

Strengthening of Soft Marine Clay Using Bioencapsulation

Dredged or excavated soft marine clay can be improved by mixing it with cement or lime. However, these treatments are usually expensive. It is shown in this paper that soft marine clay can be strengthened through a bioencapsulation method in which the shear strength of clay aggregates can be substantially increased after the aggregates are treated with urease-producing bacteria, calcium chloride, and urea. We found that the bioencapsulation had increased the unconfined compressive strength of marine clay aggregates with a size of 5 mm from almost zero to more than 2 MPa. The strength of the bioencapsulated clay aggregates decreases with the increase in the size of the aggregate when the size is greater than 5 mm.     

Degradation of lateral bearing capacity of piles in soft clay subjected to cyclic lateral loading

Abstract

In this article, the degradation of the lateral bearing capacity of piles in soft clay subjected to cyclic lateral loading is studied numerically. A modified kinematic hardening constitutive model is employed to simulate the degradation of soft clay after cyclic loading. The modified model is verified by comparing the numerical simulation results with the results of centrifuge model tests. Furthermore, the modified model is applied to numerical simulations for evaluating the lateral bearing capacity of piles in soft clay subjected to cyclic lateral loading. The degradation of the lateral bearing capacity of piles in soft clay after different cyclic displacement levels and different numbers of cycles is investigated. The study reveals that the modified kinematic hardening constitutive model can effectively estimate the cyclic degradation behavior of piles in soft clay subjected to cyclic lateral loading. The degradation of the ultimate lateral bearing capacity progresses slowly with increasing cyclic displacement level for fewer cycles, and the degradation develops significantly at higher levels of cyclic displacement after applying a larger number of cycles.     

Centrifuge modelling of lateral loading behaviour of a “semi-rigid” Mono-pile in soft clay

Abstract

Mono-pile foundations have been widely used for offshore wind turbines principally due to their convenient construction and cost-effective nature. So far, little attention has been paid to large diameter “semi-rigid” piles that have distinct behaviours from flexible or ideally rigid piles. This paper presents a series of centrifuge model tests to study the deforming and bearing characteristics of a 5.9 dia. semi-rigid pile under lateral loadings in kaolin clay. For monotonic loading, a modified p–y curve analysis model considering rotational soil flow near the rotation centre of pile was proposed, highlighting the limitation of classic plane-strain based plasticity models to evaluate the ultimate lateral pile-soil resistance. For cyclic loading, a strong correlation between the degree of soil degradation and cyclic load amplitude was identified. Besides, a degradation factor model, accounting for various cyclic stress levels and soil depths, was proposed, which can be used to assess the accumulative displacement of semi-rigid piles under cyclic loadings in soft clay.     

循环应力下饱和黏土剪切变形特性试验研究

针对饱和重塑黏土,利用土工静力-动力液压三轴-扭转多功能剪切仪,在不固结不排水(UU)条件下进行了应力控制式循环扭剪和竖向-扭转耦合试验,通过对试验结果的对比分析探讨了初始预剪应力和应力反向对应力-应变关系特性的影响,并阐述了不同加荷模式下孔隙水压力发展特性。以此为基础,综合考虑剪切变形和正向偏差变形的共同效应,同时为了能够反映平均残余变形和循环变形的影响,建议了一个综合应变破坏标准的算式。进而通过利用试验数据与目前常用的应变标准比较,表明这种破坏标准具有普遍适用性和较好的稳定性,适用于判定各种应力条件下黏土试样破坏及其强度。     

软黏土中成桩工艺对HSCM桩抗压承载性能影响的模型试验研究

螺旋桩芯劲性复合桩（helix stiffened cement mixing pile,简称HSCM桩）是一种新型复合桩,其成桩工艺会对桩身及其承载性能有较大影响。为验证HSCM桩在软黏土中同步旋进注浆工艺的可行性,并研究其成桩参数对抗压承载性能的影响,设计了2组缩尺模型试验,包括不同叶片数量与钻进速度的HSCM桩与对比螺旋桩。通过在高岭土制备的软黏土中成桩,并进行抗压承载性能及桩身几何尺寸测试,分析HSCM桩的成桩参数与水泥土桩身间的关系。试验结果表明：同步旋进注浆工艺能够在螺旋桩周围形成倒圆台状的水泥土桩身,水泥土桩身的平均黏结直径约为叶片直径的1.17～1.35倍;适当增加叶片数量能够使水泥与土体充分拌和,提高水泥土桩身的完整性与连续性,以改善HSCM桩的成桩质量;钻进速度大幅提高会导致注浆量不足,减小水泥土桩身的黏结直径与刚度;试验条件下HSCM桩的抗压极限承载力是螺旋桩的3.83～3.93倍,桩径扩大提高了侧摩阻力,注浆工艺加固并提高了土体强度,弥补了叶片在旋进过程中扰动土体造成强度降低的问题。     

Influence of vacuum preloading on vertical bearing capacities of piles installed on coastal soft soil

Abstract

Land reclamation has increased significantly in the eastern coastal areas of China. The increased exploitation of offshore resources has made cast-in-situ piles more preferable in these regions. However, precise prediction of axial forces and shaft resistances of piles is particularly difficult because geological conditions are complex after the foundation is treated by vacuum preloading. In this study, two groups of cast-in-situ piles, each of which consisted of two piles installed in soft soil in Oufei Project, Wenzhou, China, were compared by conducting tests using the slow static loading method to evaluate the influence of applying vacuum preloading to deal with soft soil foundation on the vertical bearing capacities of the piles. Two piles were located in an untreated area, while the other two were located in a vacuum preloading treating area. All the piles had the same length and diameter. In addition, the axial forces and shaft resistances of piles were calculated based on the measured strains. The field tests revealed that the ultimate bearing capacities and shaft resistances of test piles were significantly improved compared to those of the piles in untreated area. The experimental results presented in this study are expected to be highly beneficial for practical engineering.     

Response of Single Piles in Marine Deposits to Negative Skin Friction from Long-term Field Monitoring

The behavior of single piles subjected to negative skin friction in soft soil was conducted by analyzing the results from full-scale long-term field measurements and three-dimensional (3D) numerical analyses. A skin friction coefficient (α and β coefficients) of the instrumented piles is back-calculated at different degrees of consolidation (U) of soft marine clay. Back-calculated β-values ranged from 0.15 to 0.35 for clay, and from 0.30 to 0.55 for sand, respectively. In addition, back-calculated α-values ranged from 0.1 to 0.3 for coated pile, and from 0.2 to 0.8 for uncoated pile when undrained shear strength of the soft clay was about 30–60 kPa, respectively. Moreover, this study describes behavior of a pile based on full-coupled 3D finite element (FE) analysis. The appropriate parametric studies needed for verifying the pile-soil interaction with consolidation are presented in this paper. Compared to the results from the measurements, it is shown that the computed results are capable of predicting the pile-soil behavior under consolidation. The major parameters that influence the pile behavior are discussed for different soil-pile conditions.     

三种不同管土相互作用模型在触地区立管运动模拟中的比较研究

选择恰当的管土相互作用模型,对于准确描述海洋悬链线立管在触地区的动力响应至关重要。首先总结分析了国内外已有的三类典型管土作用模型,并基于三种模型计算模拟了触地区管道的竖向运动过程,计算结果与试验数据进行了对比验证。选用的三类模型均包括四个管土作用状态,即未接触、初始贯入、上拔和再贯入。研究发现:RQ模型对管道远端管道埋深的预测结果远比试验值小,明显低估了管道的触地区范围;AB模型可以考虑管道的开槽效应,但对于土体强度弱化估算不准,预测的管道埋深远低于试验值;ABY模型能够考虑土体强度的循环弱化,但在模拟管土相互作用时会严重低估土体的强度,预测的管道远端的埋深远大于试验值,这可能导致对管道疲劳寿命的估计错误,需对其进行必要的修正。     

Immersed tunnel foundation on marine clay improved by sand compaction piles

The sand compaction pile (SCP) method can be applied to soft marine clay ground that is a reinforcement of composite ground consisting of compacted sand piles and surrounding clay. The application of SCP method in the immersed tunnel of Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macao Bridge verify SCP method is a robust solution to limit the total settlement and differential longitudinal settlement and to promote smooth transition from immersed tunnel to artificial island. The SCP method has significant settlement reduction effect on marine clay. The SCPs can also function as a drainage path to accelerate the consolidation process in marine clay. It is also found that the consolidation rate of SCP-improved ground is delayed compared with that predicted program which is most probably because of the soil disturbance effect during the installation of SCPs.