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Creep potential of soft clays of Normal Kolkata Deposit

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Abstract

Creep behaviour of clayey soils across the globe has been extensively studied and documented indicating their detrimental effects on the stability of structures, embankments and dams, excavations, etc. using a large number of case studies since the middle of last century at various locations all over the world. A number of similar cases were also reported on distressing/failure of structures in and near Kolkata due to the presence of soft clay in the upper region. The creep/long-term behaviour of soft inorganic and organic clays of Normal Kolkata Deposits has been examined in this paper by conducting multistage creep triaxial tests on artificially consolidated soil specimens under undrained conditions. The creep parameters developed by Singh and Mitchell have been calculated to quantify the creep potential of soft clays of Kolkata. The results establish that the organic layer of the Normal Kolkata soil is vulnerable to creep. A design example has also been presented to estimate the overall settlement of an old building in Kolkata using these parameters.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Jadavpur University, 188, Raja S.C. Mallick Road, Kolkata, 700032, India

    Atriya Chowdhury & Ramendu Bikas Sahu

Authors
  1. Atriya Chowdhury
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  2. Ramendu Bikas Sahu
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Correspondence to Ramendu Bikas Sahu.

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Responsible Editor: Zeynal Abiddin Erguler

Appendices

Appendix A

Fig. 1
figure 1

Soil stratification of a bore log along Normal Kolkata Deposit (Dastidar and Ghosh 1967) (Dastidar and Ghosh 1967)

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Sample preparation process

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Fig. 3
figure 3

Stress-strain response from conventional triaxial undrained tests

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Fig. 4
figure 4

Pore pressure response from conventional triaxial undrained tests

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Triaxial creep test arrangement. (a) Test setup. (b) Pictorial presentation of the setup

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Axial deformation accumulation vs. time curve. (a) Inorganic clay—100 kPa. (b) Inorganic clay—200 kPa. (c) Organic clay—100 kPa. (d) Organic clay—200 kPa

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Excess pore pressure vs. time curve. (a) Inorganic clay—100 kPa. (b) Inorganic clay—200 kPa. (c) Organic clay—100 kPa. (d) Organic clay—200 kPa

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Normalized deviator stress vs. axial strain. (a) Inorganic clay. (b) Organic clay

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Fig. 9
figure 9

Singh and Mitchell (1969) creep parameters. (a) Creep parameter m. (b) parameters A and α

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Fig. 10
figure 10

Axial strain rate % vs. stress ratio. (a) Inorganic clay—100 kPa. (b) Inorganic clay—200 kPa. (c) Organic clay—100 kPa. (d) Organic clay—200 kPa

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Fig. 11
figure 11

Strain rate vs. time from undrained creep tests. (a) Inorganic clay—100 kPa. (b) Inorganic clay—200 kPa. (c) Organic clay—100 kPa. (d) Organic clay—200 kPa

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Fig. 12
figure 12

Variation of m with stress level. (a) Inorganic clay. (b) Organic clay

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Subsoil profile for settlement calculations

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Appendix B

Table 1 Index properties of soil
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Table 2 Maximum deviator stress and pore water pressure
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Table 3 Incremental strain and pore pressure parameters—inorganic soil, 100 kPa
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Table 4 Incremental strain and pore pressure parameters—inorganic soil, 200 kPa
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Table 5 Incremental strain and pore pressure parameters—organic soil, 100 kPa
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Table 6 Incremental strain and pore pressure parameters—organic soil, 200 kPa
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Table 7 The values of α
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Table 8 Creep potential parameters—inorganic soil, 100 kPa
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Table 9 Creep potential parameters—inorganic soil, 200 kPa
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Table 10 Creep potential parameters—organic soil, 100 kPa
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Table 11 Creep potential parameters—organic soil, 200 kPa
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Table 12 ‘m’ values corresponding to FOS adopted
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Chowdhury, A., Sahu, R.B. Creep potential of soft clays of Normal Kolkata Deposit. Arab J Geosci 14, 1354 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07677-0

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