A procedure for determining long-term creep rates of soft clays by triaxial testing

Journal article, 2017

The paper presents a procedure for determining a significantly larger range of creep rates (isotaches) of soft clays than found from standard incremental loading oedometer tests. The test is performed in a triaxial apparatus by first loading up to the virgin compression line at a relevant effective stress level and then determine the creep rates at different stress states along an unloading branch keeping the horizontal to vertical effective stress ratio constant. The test procedure is tested on a soft Norwegian plastic marine clay. Challenges due to the non-linear behaviour of natural soft clays where the standard creep and compression indexes are not constant values are demonstrated, and recommendations for how to account for this effect are given. The obtained results from the test are also compared with results from a parallel long-term creep phase in a standard oedometer apparatus taken from the same block sample.