Determination of Consolidation Parameters of Geomaterials Using Modified CRS Consolidation Testing System

Abstract

Nowadays, the constant rate of strain (CRS) consolidation phenomenon has gained more attention as an alternate testing method to evaluate the consolidation characteristics of finegrained soils based on strain rate criterion. In the present study, a modified consolidation cell has been fabricated indigenously and carried out a series of CRS tests using a conventional triaxial loading frame at four different strain rates on reconstituted samples of marine clay at 0.002, 0.003, 0.004 and 0.005 mm/min, black cotton soil at 0.0025, 0.003, 0.005 and 0.0075 mm/min, red mud at 0.10, 0.125, 0.25 and 0.50 mm/min, and Varanasi local soil at 0.05, 0.075, 0.10 and 0.125 mm/min. Based on the pore pressure ratio (PPR) criterion, the best suitable strain rates for marine clay, black cotton soil, red mud, and Varanasi local soil were found to be 0.002, 0.0025, 0.1 and 0.05 mm/min, respectively. Further, the consolidation parameters namely primary compression index (cc), recompression index (cr), coefficient of consolidation (cv), coefficient of axial compressibility (av) and permeability (k) obtained through proposed CRS consolidation method are compared and validated successfully with the parameters obtained through Incremental Loading (IL) tests using both conventional and modified oedometer cells.