Characterization of geotechnical properties as affected by sediment environment in Kanto lowland clays in Japan

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate effects of sedimentary environment (freshwater and marine deposits) on geotechnical properties for Kanto lowland clays. Freshwater and marine sediments were used to perform standard consolidation tests, undrained triaxial compression tests, and unconfined compression test. Pore-water compositions were also measured for the sediments. As results, higher compression index, higher sensitivity, and lower shear strength ratio were observed for the marine sediments as compared to those for the freshwater sediments. In addition, the measurements of pore-water compositions revealed that the sensitivity values were well related to the proportion of monovalent cations, especially for the sediments with plastic index of less than 30.