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Observational Procedure for the Prediction of Ultimate Swell

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Abstract

Montmorillonitic soils pose problems in the field as they are capable of exhibiting appreciable swelling when come in contact with water. In this context, prediction of amount of swell of such field soils gains importance. There are many approaches documented in the geotechnical engineering literature to predict the ultimate swell values. In the present work, a method of predicting the ultimate swell of the soils namely ‘observational procedure’ based on the procedure proposed by Asaoka for the analysis of consolidation data is developed and proposed. It is shown through exhaustive experimental data that the proposed method predicts the ultimate swell of soils quite satisfactorily.

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Abbreviations

Dr :

Relative density

Gs :

Specific gravity

wL :

Liquid limit

wP :

Plastic limit

wS :

Shrinkage limit

\(\delta_{n} \) :

Settlement at nth time interval tn

\(\delta_{p} \) :

Settlement at the end of primary consolidation

S:

Swell value

Smax :

Ultimate swell value

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Appendix

Appendix

Step by step procedure of Asoaka’s method is indicated below:

  • The time – swell data is plotted in the form of S vs t curve and the points are joined by a best fit smooth curve.

  • The swell values at constant intervals of time i.e., \(S_{1} ,S_{2} ,...S_{n - 1} ,S_{n}\) at corresponding times \(t_{1} , t_{2} ,... t_{n - 1} , t_{n} \) such that \(t_{n} - t_{n - 1} =\) constant are recorded.

  • The recorded data is replotted in the form of swell at nth time interval (Sn) vs swell at (n-1)th time interval (\(S_{n - 1}\)). This will exhibit a straight line trend passing through the plotted points (Fig. 2).

  • This Straight line is produced forward to meet the 45° line drawn from the origin. The point of intersection corresponds to the ultimate or maximum swell (Smax) (Eq. 2).

    $$ S_{n} = S_{n - 1} = S_{max} $$
    (2)

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Prakash, K., Siddharth Prabhu, N. & Sridharan, A. Observational Procedure for the Prediction of Ultimate Swell. Geotech Geol Eng 39, 4669–4676 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-021-01754-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-021-01754-7

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