Soil stiffness in stress paths relevant to diaphragm walls in clay

Powrie, W., Pantelidou, H. and Stallebrass, S. E. (2001) Soil stiffness in stress paths relevant to diaphragm walls in clay. Géotechnique, 51 (2), 177-178. (doi:10.1680/geot.51.2.177.40286).

Record type: Article

Abstract

The authors report an extensive triaxial testing programmeon reconstituted kaolin to investigate the influence of stress paths on the stiffness of soil elements in the vicinity of diaphragm walls. They state that the effect of the recent stress history of the soil on its stress-strain response is now well established'.
In support of this statement, they present data that appear to show that the stiffness of their kaolin, when tested under triaxial conditions, is strongly influenced by a change in stress path direction. Fig. 8 of their paper shows that a specimen that experienced a reversal in total stress path direction (1808) has a normalised stiffness 4-8 times higher than that of specimens that undergo no reversal in total stress path direction. This finding is in broad agreement with results from reconstituted London Clay reported by Atkinson et al. (1990), who showed an increase in stiffness of an order of magnitude when comparing the stiffness after a reversal in effective stress path direction with no change in direction.

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