Influence of natural deposition plane orientation on oedometric consolidation behavior of three typical clays from southeast coast of China

The parameters obtained from oedometric consolidation tests are commonly used in the development of constitutive modeling and for engineering practice. This paper focuses on the influence of the natural deposition plane orientation on oedometric consolidation behavior of three natural clays from the southeast coast of China. Oedometer tests were conducted on intact specimens prepared by sampling at a series of angles relative to the natural deposition plane. For each specimen, yield stress, compressibility indexes, secondary compression, and permeability coefficients were determined. The influence of the sampling angle on these properties was investigated, revealing that yield stress, compression index, swelling index, creep index, ratio of secondary compression coefficient to compression index (C ?e/C c) and permeability coefficient were all dependent to some extent on the sampling angle. These findings indicate the role of the anisotropy due to the natural deposition on the oedometric consolidation behavior. © 2013 Zhejiang University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.