Compressibility behaviour of remoulded, fine-grained soils and correlationwith index properties

Correlating engineering properties with index properties has assumed greate r significance in the recent past in the field of geotechnical engineering. Although attempts have been made in the past to correlate compressibility with various index properties individually, all the properties affecting co mpressibility behaviour have not been considered together in any single stu dy to examine which index property of the soil correlates best with compres sibility behaviour, especially within a set of test results. In the present study, 10 soils covering a sufficiently wide range of liquid limit, plasti c limit, and shrinkage limit were selected and conventional consolidation t ests were carried out starting with their initial water contents almost equ al to their respective liquid limits. The compressibility behaviour is vast ly different for pairs of soils having nearly the same liquid limit, but di fferent plasticity characteristics. The relationship between void ratio and consolidation pressure is more closely related to the shrinkage index (shr inkage index = liquid limit - shrinkage limit) than to the plasticity index . Wide variations are seen with the liquid limit. For the soils investigate d, the compression index relates better with the shrinkage index than with the plasticity index or liquid limit.