A Laboratory Study of Rheological Properties of Soft Mud Using a Dynamic Shear-controlled Oscillatory Viscometer

Abstract

Nie S.; Jiang Q.; Wang L.; Zhang J., and Liu P. 2018. A laboratory study of rheological properties of soft mud using a dynamic shear-controlled oscillatory viscometer.. In: Shim, J.-S.; Chun, I., and Lim, H.S. (eds.), Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2018 (Busan, Republic of Korea). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 85, pp. 1226–1230. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.The rheological properties of soft mud play an important role in studying the interaction between soft mud bed and water waves. In this study, a dynamic shear-controlled oscillatory viscometer that can generate sinusoidal oscillatory shear loads is developed to clarify the rheological responses of soft mud under the action of water waves. Pure commercial kaolinite and the in-situ soft mud taken from Lianyungang Port, China were used in the experiment. By changing the water content ratio of mud samples and the amplitude and period of oscillatory shear forces, more than 600 runs of laboratory tests were conducted. The experimental results indicate that, under oscillatory loads, kaolinite and natural soft mud show rheological similarities. Both the kaolinite and in-situ soft mud are characterized by the combined viscoelastic-plastic properties, and the rheological behaviors of the mud samples are significantly influenced by the water content ratio and load magnitude.