THE IMPACT OF THE DIAMETER TO HEIGHT RATIO ON THE COMPRESSIBILITY PARAMETERS OF SATURATED FINE-GRAINED SOILS

Compressibility parameters of fine-grained soils are mainly influenced by soil mineralogy, moisture content and soil diameter to height ratio (D/H). The British and American standards suggested that to obtain accurate engineering properties; it is necessary to use D/H ratio of 4 and 2.5 respectively to eliminate friction between the soil and the structure. In the current study, various D/H ratios were adopted ranging from 0.5 to 11. The D/H ratios effect on some compressibility parameters such as coefficient of consolidation (cv), compression index (cc) and coefficient of volume compressibility (mv) were analysed. Additionally, the impact of the D/H ratio on the acquire cv values were also presented where three methods were used namely: Casagrande, Taylor and Inflection method. The scaling effects based on cv ratio [cv (√t) / cv (log t)] from Oedometer tests using different D/H ratios are also presented. The results showed that Taylor’s method is the most appropriate way to achieve an accurate cv and an increase in pressure leads to a reduction in cc and a gradual decrease in mv. The validation of the experimental results on a finite element software package PLAXIS was completed.