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An insight into the creep mechanisms of a clayey soil through long-term consolidation tests

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Abstract

Creep or secondary consolidation of the clayey soil is critical and should be investigated. In this study, the creep behaviour of a clayey soil was investigated in the laboratory by conducting long-term oedometer tests. Standard loading and unloading procedures were followed to investigate creep for more than 1 year. The results confirmed the high creep potential of the clayey soil. Furthermore, the creep strain rate did not always increase with the load level because of the oedometric modulus hardening effect, which could be closely related to the rearrangement of the soil particles produced by secondary consolidation. A relationship existed between the compression index and the secondary consolidation coefficient, and their ratio was constant at approximately 0.026. The permeability approximately linearly increased with the void ratio. The difference in the creep behaviour at the same loading or unloading load levels indicated that the creep of the clayey soil was essentially stress-path dependent.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank European Underground Research Infrastructure for disposal of nuclear waste in Clay Environment (EURIDICE) for collaborating on the long-term THM behaviour of Boom Clay and providing the clay cores. With the remaining cores, further investigation on the oedometric creep behaviour of Boom Clay was conducted. The authors heartily thank them for their support.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51979266, 51879258, 51991392), and Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Hongdan Yu, Chen Lu, Weizhong Chen & Hongming Tian

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100,049, China

    Chen Lu

  3. Research Center of Geotechnical and Structural Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, China

    Weizhong Chen

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  1. Hongdan Yu
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Correspondence to Weizhong Chen.

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Yu, H., Lu, C., Chen, W. et al. An insight into the creep mechanisms of a clayey soil through long-term consolidation tests. Bull Eng Geol Environ 80, 9127–9139 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02472-3

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