Experimental investigation of the influence on static and cyclic deformation of structural soft clay of stress level

Abstract

This paper presents the experimental results performed to study the static and cyclic deformation behavior of undisturbed and remolded soft clays sampling from Xiaoshan. The consolidation tests indicated that the vertical strains of undisturbed soft clay could be divided into three stages with load increasing, however, the remolded clays were almost independent of stress level. The two cut-off points of these three stages are the preconsolidation stress and the structural yielding stress of the original clay, which could be determined by shear wave velocity measurement. The strains developed during cyclic tests of undisturbed and remolded soft clay, both having one turning point under different amplitude of cyclic stress. The strain developed slowly and stayed at a low level at the early stage, but developed quickly in a different way when the turning points were achieved and finally became great. The turning strains changed with different cyclic stress amplitudes, but they almost fell on a linear line whether undisturbed or remolded. Furthermore, the turning points of the remolded clay all fell on the same line of different confining stresses, including which of the undisturbed soft clay under confining pressure was larger than structural yielding stress. It was also found that the deformation characteristic of undisturbed and remolded Xiaoshan clay tend to be consistent when the structure of undisturbed soft clay is damaged.