Comparative Study of Stress-Strain Characteristic of Peat Soil

Abstract

This paper shows the stress-strain behavior of peat from the perspective of geotechnical engineering based on laboratory test. Stress happens when a load applied to a certain specimen and deformed the specimen while strain is the response from applied stress on a specimen. Peat is known as an ultimate soft soil in engineering terms because it has low shear strength and compressibility. This research is concerned about the stress-strain behavior of hemic peat. The undisturbed samples were collected at Parit Sulong and Parit Nipah, Batu Pahat, Johore, Malaysia. Normal stresses are 12.5kPa, 25kPa, 50kPa and 100kPa. The shear rate to determine the stress-strain on peat is 0.1mm/min. It is a drained condition test. Both results from each method that obtained were compared based on the relationships of stress-strain. Parit Sulong has higher stress-strain than Parit Nipah. If shear stress increased, shear strain also increased. The result shows that, direct simple shear test of stress-strain that tested on hemic is more relevant than a direct shear box because DSS shear the entire specimen of peat while DSB only shear at the center of the specimen. Geotechnical engineers can use the direct simple shear method to understand efficiently about the stress-strain behaviour of peat.