Friction Characteristics Between Marine Clay and Construction Materials

Structure-soil interface friction characteristics is of importance to investigate the interaction between engineering structures and soils,especially for offshore structures.The interface friction behavior between marine clay and structural materials with different roughness was studied in this paper by using 3D optical scanning tests,a modified direct shear device and numerical simulation.Relationships between the surface roughness of structures,water content and interface friction angle were presented by model tests.The increase of water contents decreased the interface friction angles.For interfaces with different roughness,the interface friction angles will be smaller than that of the soil when the water content exceeds a certain value.The roughness of the interface and the water content of the soil are mutually coupled to influence the coefficient of friction(COF).This paper proposed a Finite Element Method(FEM)to simulate the interface direct shear tests of structures with different roughness.The surface models with different roughness are established based on the structure data obtained by 3D scanning.The Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian(CEL)approach was employed to analyse soils sheared by irregular surfaces.The interface behavior for interfaces with different roughness under cyclic shear stresses was analyzed by FEM.

Effect of Cyclic Loading Frequency on Undrained Behaviors of Undisturbed Marine Clay

Based on a series of cyclic triaxial tests, the effect of cyclic frequency on the undrained behaviors of undisturbed marine clay is investigated. For a given dynamic stress ratio, the accumulated pore water pressure and dynamic strain increase with the number of cycles. There exists a threshold value for both the accumulated pore water pressure and dynamic strain, below which the effect of cyclic frequency is very small, but above which the accumulated pore water pressure and dynamic strain increase intensely with the decrease of cyclic frequency for a given number of cycles. The dynamic strength increases with the increase of cyclic frequency, whereas the effect of cyclic frequency on it gradually diminishes to zero when the number of cycles is large enough, and the dynamic strengths at different frequencies tend to the same limiting minimum dynamic strength. The test results demonstrate that the reasons for the frequency effect on the undrained soil behaviors are both the creep effect induced by the loading rate and the decrease of sample effective confining pressure caused by the accumulated pore water pressure.

Macro-and Micro-Properties of Two Natural Marine Clays in China

In this paper,macro-and micro-properties of natural marine clay in two different and representative regions of China are investigated in detail.In addition to in-situ tests,soil samples are collected by use of Shelby tubes for laboratory examination in Shanghai and Zhuhai respectively,two coastal cities in China.In the laboratory tests,macro-properties such as consolidation characteristics and undrained shear strength are measured.Moreover,X-ray diffraction test,scanning electron microscope test,and mercury intrusion test are carried out for the investigation of their micro-properties including clay minerals and microstructure.The study shows that：（1）both clays are Holocene series formations,classified as either normal or underconsolidated soils.The initial gradient of the stress-strain curves shows their increase with increasing consolidation pressure;however,the Shanghai and the Zhuhai clays are both structural soils with the latter shown to be more structured than the former.As a result,the Zhuhai clay shows strain softening behavior at low confining pressures,but strain hardening at high pressures.In contrast,the Shanghai clay mainly manifests strain-hardening.（2）An activity ranges from 0.75 to 1.30 for the Shanghai marine clay and from 0.5 to 0.85 for the Zhuhai marine clay.The main clay mineral is illite in the Shanghai clay and kaolinite in the Zhuhai clay.The Zhuhai clay is mainly characterized by a flocculated structure,while the typical Shanghai clay shows a dispersed structure.The porous structure of the Shanghai clay is characterized mainly by large and medium-sized pores,while the Zhuhai clay porous structure is mainly featured by small and medium-sized pores.The differences in their macro-and micro-properties can be attributed to different sedimentation environments.

Improvements of marine clay slurries using chemicale-physical combined method(CPCM)

In this paper, the effectiveness, applicability and validity of chemicalephysical combined methods（CPCMs） for treatment of marine clay （MC） slurries were evaluated. The method CPCM1 combineschemical stabilization and vacuum preloading （VP）, while CPCM2 is similar to CPCM1 but includes boththe application of surcharge and use of geo-bags to provide confinement during surcharge preloading.The key advantage of CPCM2 using geo-bags is that the surcharge can be immediately applied on thechemically stabilized slurries. Two types of geo-bags were investigated under simulated land filling anddyke conditions, respectively. The test results show that the shear strength （cu） of treated slurry byCPCM2 is generally much higher than that by CPCM1. Besides, the use of CPCM2 can significantly reducethe treatment time due to the short drainage paths created by geo-bags. Overall, CPCM2 allows fasterconsolidation and higher preloading that help to achieve higher mechanical properties of the stabilizedslurry. There are consistent relationships between cU and water content of slurries treated by CPCM2.Several important observations were also made based on comparisons of experimental data. 2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting byElsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A New Model for Correlation between the Marine Benthic Oxygen Isotope and Red Clay Magnetic Susceptibility on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Objective Aeolian sediments on the Chinese Loess Plateau contain some of the best continental archives of palaeoclimate change in the Late Cenozoic. The consensus that alternating MS in loess-paleosols in China was due to the strengthening and weakening of the East Asian palaeomonsoon provides an excellent climate record when correlated with global ice volume. Significantly, new basal dates from the red clay underlying the loess-paleosol sequence indicate that wind-blown dust began to accumulate on the Chinese Loess Plateau at least 22 million years ago. There are differences of opinion,