THE FAMILY of COMPACTION CURVES for FINE-GRAINED Solls and Thelr ENGINEERING BEHAVIORS
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UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA THE FAMILY OF COMPACTION CURVES FOR FINE-GRAINED SOlLS AND THElR ENGINEERING BEHAVIORS Hua Li @ A thesis subrnitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirernents for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Geotechnical Engineering Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Edmonton, Alberta Spring 2001 National Library Bibliothèque nationale Ml ofcanada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Senrices services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, nie Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Lïbrary of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriie or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts £kom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. To my wife Beland daughter Nice for their support, love and understanding To my parents for ail their encouragement and help through my education To my sister and brother for al1 the good time we had aIong the way ABSTRACT The family of compaction curves has been found and used in construction quality control as the one-point method for many years. The objective of this study is to investigate soil compaction theory for fine-grained soils, especially the fundamental aspects related to the family of cornpaction curves, and its influence on their engineering behaviors. Studies of the characteristics of the complete compaction curve allowed a promising equation for describing the compaction curve for fine-grained soils to be proposed. The equation has four parameters which physically define the boundary conditions, shape and size of the compaction curve. The relationships between the compaction parameters and the physical properties of a given soil are studied. The equation cm easily be used to predict a farnily of compaction curves for the sanie soil for varying compactive efforts. In order to explain the origin of the farnily of compaction curves, the evolution of particle size distribution for residual soils due to weathering is analyzed using uniform kagrnentation theory. The profiles of unconfined compression strength along the complete compaction curves are presented. It is found that the matric suction value at the compaction sensitivity threshold is equal to compactive stress applied during the test, which is important for understanding the compaction mechanism and determining the effective cornpaction region and the water content where the maximum compressive strength occurs. The deformation behavior of the compacted fine-grained soils is another focus of this research. A r,ew testing procedure using undisturbed compacted sarnples is deveroped that combines compaction, one-dimensional compression and wetting collapse testing in one apparatus. A senes of soil deformation behaviors are summarized with variation in water content, compactive efforts, and wetting-flooding sequences. A continuous mode1 to describe the one-dimensional compression curve over the complete stress range is proposed. Based on the equation and the concept of the family of compression curves, a new method is proposed to estimate the settlement of a thick compacted layer. 1 would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to Dr. David C. Sego for his consistent guidance and advice throughout this study. The opportunity to work with him and witness his insight covenng the field of geotechnical engineering was an invaluable experience. The support and direction offered by Dr. Norbert R. Morgenstern was cntical to this research at the early stage and greatly appreciated. 1 would like to appreciate the encouragement and support by Dr. Eck Chalatumyk during the research. The helpfùl editorial suggestion of Dr. Kevin Biggai- significantly improved the manuscript of the thesis. My acknowledgement is also extended to Dr. Dwayne Tannant and Dr. David Chanasyk for their valuable comrnents during my candidacy and final examination. 1 would like particularly to thank Dr. Jean-Marie Konrad fkom Laval University for accepting to be the extemal examiner and for his valuable cornments. 1would also like to thank Dr. David Cruden and Dr. Stan Thomson for their inputs during the research. The never-ending help fiom Mr. Gerry Cyre, Mr. Steve Garnble, and Ms. Christine Hereygers in laboratory testing is gratefùlly acknowledged. I wish to thank Syncrude Canada Ltd. for providing the overburden soi1 samples used for this study. Helpful suggestions by Ms. Danielle Romanick of Campbell Scientific, Inc. and Dr. Fangsheng Shuai of University of Saskatchewan during suction measurement are greatly acknowledged. The financial supports through National Sciences and Engineering Research Council gant (NSERC) held by Dr. Sego and University of Alberta PhD. Scholarsliip are gratefully acknowIedged. 1 would also like to thank my feliow graduate students in geotechnical goup of department of civil and environmental engineering and in department of mathematical sciences for the challenging discussions and eesh ideas. My thanks are also extended to my former colleagues in department of geotechnical engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, China, for the knowledge and experience they gave me. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ................ ....... .............................. 1 LIST OF TABLES .......................................................... .VI ...................... LIST OF FIGURES ................... .. ........... ...................... VI1 LIST OF SYMBOLS ............................. ............... ........................... XIV CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........ .............................. ..................................... 1 1. 1 OUTLINE OF THESIS .................................................................................... 3 1.2 REFERENCES ...................................................................................................... 6 CAAPTER 2 EQUATION FOR COMPACTION CURVE OF FINE-GRAINED sons: ITS ORIGIN. IMPLEMENTATION AND APPLICATION .............. 9 2.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 9 2.2 THE COMPLETE COMPACTION CURVE FOR FM-GRAINED SOL ..... 12 2.2.1 Identifiable regions of the compaction curve............................................... 13 2.2.2 Boundaries of compaction cwe.................................................................. 14 2.2.3 Shape of compaction curve ........................................................................... 15 2.2.4 Size (Compactable rnoisture range) of compaction curve ....................... ..... 15 2.3 DERIVATION OF THE COMPACTION CURVE FOR FINE-GRAINED SOIL 16 2.3.1 Thehypothesis .......................... ....... ...................................................... 16 2.3.2 Expression for f (w)................ .... .............................................................. 18 2.4 INFLUENCE OF PARAMETERS ..................................................................... 19 2.5 DETE-ATION OF COMPACTION PARAMETERS ............................. 2 1 2.5.1 Direct method ................................................................................................ 2 1 2.5.2 Regression method ........................................................................................ 22 2.6 APPLICATION 1 - FITTING COhQACTION CURVES ................................. 23 2-7 APPLICATION II .PREDICTING A FAMILY OF COMPACTION CURVES 24 2.7.1 Analyses of a family of compaction curves .................................................. 24 2.7.2 Creating a family of compaction curves ....................................................... 26 2.7.3 Examples ....................................................................................................... 27 2.8 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................. 28 2.9 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 29 2.10 @PENDIX 2-A DEWATION OF PROPOSED EQUATION 2-6 AND 2-7 33 2.11 APPENDIX 2-B DETERMINATION OF PARAMETER "N" FROM S VERSUS W CURVE .................................................................................................... 36 2.12 @PENDIX 2-C DETERMINATION OF PARAMETER "P" FRGM S VERSUS W CURVE .................................................................................................... 40 2.13 APPENDIX 2-D DERIVATION OF SUGGESTED EQUATION 2-9 (KP=CONS ï) ................................................................................................................ 42 CHAPTER 3 SOIL COMPACTION PARAMETERS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH son, PHYSICAL PROPERTES~ ............................-• 67 3.1 INTRODUCTION ................................................ .... .............................. 67 3.2 COMPLETE COMPACTION CURVE FOR FINE-GRAINED SOILS ............ 68 3.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF