CONSTANT RATE OF STRAIN CONSOLIDATION OF SINGAPORE MARINE CLAY

This Paper reports the application of a data analysis procedure propos ed by Lee (1981) to three series of constant rate of strain (CRS) cons olidation tests on undisturbed and reconstituted Singapore marine clay samples. These tests were carried out to large deformations: the fina l compression of the samples was typically 40% of their initial thickn ess. The proposed data analysis procedure produced three compression c urves and two sets of coefficient of consolidation C(v) for different parts of the sample. It was proposed that a successful CRS test would be one for which the compression curves and the C(v) values agreed; th is was confirmed by the favourable comparison between the results of s uccessful CRS tests and standard oedometer tests. Further analysis of the successful CRS tests showed that their dimensionless strain rate b eta was generally below the theoretical threshold value of 0.1. This t heoretical threshold value provided the basis for a proposed test rate selection procedure.