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Volume Title: ICASGE2023

DOI: ICASGE-GEO

¹Alaaeldin Magdy ; ²Mostafa El Sawwaf; ²Marawan Shahien; ³Ahmed Nasr; Ahmed M. Nasr

¹Structural department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University.

²Structural Engineering department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University

³Structural department, Faculty of Engineering, Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt.

Obtaining undisturbed amounts of soft clay for laboratory investigations and physical model testing from field is a hard process; therefore, researchers turn to prepare soft clay in the laboratory. There are different techniques in the literature for preparing perfect soft clay using commercially available kaolinite. In this research, a comparison between the two most common techniques was conducted to determine the better one. The first technique is mixing the kaolinite powder with a moisture content slightly higher than the liquid limit and then consolidating it in the test tank to the desired state. The second technique is to fill up and compact the test tank in layers with the soft clay prepared by mixing the kaolinite powder with a specific moisture content smaller than the liquid limit according to the desired shear strength. The results clarified that: (1) the shear strength of the prepared clay in the two techniques can be similar by controlling moisture content and consolidation pressure; (2) the first technique takes three days, whereas the second technique takes only one day; and (3) in the first technique, as the water dissipates, the plate settles and runs away from the jack. Therefore, the pressure needs to be increased to reach the consolidation pressure again. Consequently, the second technique is more appropriate for preparing soft clay.

Soft clay; kaolinite; laboratory investigations; physical model testing; Liquid limit

Geotechnical Engineering (GEO)