Effect of Pore Fluid on Cyclic Behaviour of Reconstituted Marine Clay

The effect of pore fluid chemistry on the cyclic behaviour of fine grained soil is studied by performing strain controlled undrained cyclic triaxial tests on reconstituted marine clay with 0.4 M sodium chloride solution and distilled water. Specimens using different pore fluids were prepared by slurry consolidation method at vertical stress of 50 kPa. The influence of physicochemical factors on the cyclic behaviour of reconstituted marine clay was brought out by studying the effect of number of cycles on the cyclic shear modulus degradation of clay. The effective confining pressure was taken as 150 kPa, loading frequency as 1 Hz, number of loading cycles as 100, and the strain range is kept in between 0.3% to 1%. The experimental results show that, with 0.4 M sodium chloride solution as the pore fluid, the shear modulus increases at lower strain range. The variation of damping ratio with the cyclic shear strain was also brought out in this study.