Laboratory determination of strength properties of frozen salt marine clay

In connection with the building of a railway tunnel through the City of Oslo, temporary improvement of the soft clay by freezing was considered in order to reinforce the tunnel ceiling in an area where the rock cover was insufficient. The same solution was also considered for another part of the tunnel where the problem was to prevent bottom heave failure in a deep excavation.

As this marine clay deposit has a very high salt content (about 25 g/l pore liquid), it was reasonable to believe that the strength of the frozen clay would be relatively low compared to previously published data concerning fresh clay soils. To investigate the stress—strain properties of frozen Oslo clay, a fairly comprehensive research programme was carried out; including two different temperature levels and using different testing techniques. The clay was tested in compression, tension, bending and shear, respectively. The tests were run very slowly, time to failure was normally 70–100 days.

This paper presents the main test results, which indicate that there exists a fairly well defined critical shear stress level for a given freezing temperature. As long as the stresses do not exceed this stress level, the creep deformations are small and the creep rates are constant or decreasing with time. On the other hand, higher shear stresses lead to very extensive deformations or failure.