PREDICTING THE PHENOMENON OF BURYING THROUGH GRAVITY IN PURELY COHESIVE SEDIMENTARY SEA BEDS

The phenomenon of gravitational burying of solid bodies laid on a silty or clayey sedimentary sea bed is largely due to the plastic flow of the material composing this sea bed. In this study, the solid bodies are cylinders laid on their generatrix that are sufficiently long to justify the assumption of plane strain. When the nature of the contact prohibits any parting at the body-sediment interface, a general relationship covering the different parameters governing the phenomenon can be solved by studying a single unit system. The results obtained were validated by a series of experimental results from in situ and laboratory tests.