Relationships between undrained shear strength, liquidity index, and water content ratio of clays

Clays are very important in environmental geotechnical applications because of their characteristics. This paper considered over 500 data from literature and from laboratory. Undrained shear strength (remolded and undisturbed), liquidity index (IL), and water content ratio (WCR) have been compared among each other. Because natural clays have different physical and mineralogical properties, no unique relationship exists. The relationship between remolded and undisturbed undrained shear strength and liquidity index (IL) is scattered. On the contrary, if only remolded undrained shear strength values are plotted against the liquidity index, a good tendency is observed considering also the ratio of plastic limit to liquid limit in the range of IL between 0.8 and 1.3.