Application of the Cα/Cc concept to secondary compression of sabkha soils

Abstract

Sabkha soils are coastal and inland saline deposits of arid climates consisting mainly of loosely cemented sandy silt to silty clay particles. Invariably the soils contain an appreciable amount of organic material and are characterized as being highly compressible. Despite increased interest in various aspects of sabkha soil behavior, little is yet known about the nature and magnitude of secondary compression of these distinct sediments. In this paper, the secondary compression behavior of a typical sabkha formation from the southwestern coast of Saudi Arabia was investigated. Series of conventional and long-term, one-dimensional consolidation tests were conducted on natural and preloaded undisturbed samples taken from the compressible sabkha layer. The results of the laboratory investigation, substantiated by existing field data, indicated that a significant portion of sabkha settlements takes place as a secondary compression. The coefficient of secondary compression, Cα, was found to be constant, and the ratio of Cα to the compression index, Cc, is within the range reported in the published literature for various geotechnical materials. The applicability of the Cα /Cc concept to sabkha soils was further ascertained by comparing the secondary settlements estimated based on this concept with those measured directly in the field under an instrumented test embankment. Reasonable agreement was found between predictions and field observations.Key words: sabkhas, consolidation, coefficient of secondary compression, preloading, test embankment.