Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789

www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng
Undrained strength behaviour of a cemented
marine clay under monotonic and cyclic loading
G.G. Moses
a
, S.N. Rao
a,
, P.N. Rao
b
a
Department of Ocean Engineering, IIT-Madras, Chenni, 600036, India
b
Visakhapatnam Port Trust, Visakhapatnam, 530035, India
Received 5 August 2002; received in revised form 22 November 2002; accepted 30 November 2002
Abstract
The paper presents the results of a series of monotonic and cyclic triaxial shear tests carried
out to study the inuence of the strain effect and load cycles on the undrained shear strength
of a cemented marine clay from the East coast of India. The undrained shear strength of Indian
coastal marine clay has been established from a detailed shear testing carried out in three
phases. Undisturbed soil samples taken out from the seabed were used in the test. In the rst
part, a comprehensive monotonic shear testing has been carried out under both stress-controlled
and strain rate-controlled conditions. In the second phase on identical soil specimen, undrained
cyclic shear tests were carried out at various cyclic stress ratios (CSR) and these stress levels
are chosen in such a way so that no failure occurred during testing. In the nal phase post
cyclic monotonic shear testing was conducted to qualitatively evaluate the damage caused by
cyclic loading. The monotonic shear test results bring out the inuence of cementation that
can be detected by the stress-controlled test. The cyclic stress results are analysed in terms of
CSR. Further, the results are correlated in terms of stress path.
2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cemented clay; Stress-controlled testing; Cyclic loading; Post cyclic strength; Degradation
index

Corresponding author. Tel.: +91-44-2257-8626; fax: +91-44-2257-0545.

E-mail address: snarasimharao@hotmail.com (S.N. Rao).
0029-8018/03/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0029-8018(03)00018-0
1766 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
1. Introduction
The shear strength of the soil is one of the most important soil properties and the
strength behaviour of any soil is required in almost all stability problems. Engineer-
ing structures founded on any soil deposit are often designed to withstand both static
and cyclic loads. In a marine environment, cyclic loading forms a signicant pro-
portion of the loading and this decides the safety of many structures founded on the
ocean bed. By and large, marine structures subjected to cyclic loading are offshore
petroleum production platforms, offshore pipelines, storm surge barriers and harbour
structures. The foundations of these structures truly transmit the cyclic loads to the
soil below in one form or another and it is quite likely that the engineering behaviour
of these soils gets altered substantially under cyclic loading. This has been given due
importance by many investigations being carried out by the Norwegian Geotechnical
Institute (Andersen, 1976, 1983; Andersen et al., 1980).
Published data show soil response to cyclic loading ranges from virtually instan-
taneous and complete loss of strength due to liquefaction of loose sands (Seed and
Peacock, 1971) to nominal increase or decrease in the soil strength in clays (Seed
and Chan, 1966; Knight and Blight, 1965). Due to the low permeability of clays,
an excess positive pore pressure is likely to be generated under cyclic loading and
consequently the shear resistance gets reduced. For a soil like marine clay deposited
with several cementation compounds, the presence of cementing agents can cause
apparent overconsolidation through the chemical bonding and this further compli-
cates the material behaviour. Once the bonding effect is recognised, the system can
be considered to be sensitive to stress changes and duration of loading during testing.
From earlier published works it is known that the stressstraindeformation charac-
teristics of clays are highly dependent on the magnitude of the cyclic straining level
applied. The approach suggested by Matsui and Bahr (1991) analysing the system
change in terms of structural skeleton and relative movement of clay particles under
cyclic loading can be used. Over the past several years, considerable advances have
been made in understanding the behaviour of soils under cyclic loading. Some of
the early investigations reported in the literature were conducted by Seed and Chan
(1966) and Thiers and Seed (1968). In those studies, stressstrain and strength
properties of clay samples were evaluated based on the results of cyclic triaxial and
cyclic simple shear tests. Another group of studies reported in the literature were
performed by Sangrey et al. (1969); France and Sangrey (1977); Sangrey et al. (1978)
and Sangrey and France (1980). In these investigations, the cyclic stressstrain pore
water pressure behaviour of clays was studied based on cyclic triaxial tests performed
at relatively slow strain rates. The cyclic behaviour of the clays was also studied by
other researchers (Brown et al., 1975; Wood, 1980; Koutsoftas and Fisher, 1980;
Matsui et al.1980; Ishihara, 1980; Yasuhara et al., 1982). The study reported in this
paper deals with the behaviour of naturally cemented saturated clay. The cyclic
strength behaviour has been evaluated based on the strength results obtained through
a controlled triaxial shear testing and compared with the results obtained under stan-
dard triaxial shear testing.
1767 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
2. Soil used
For the present study, undisturbed soil samples were obtained from a site located
at Vishakapatnam (lat. 1740 N long. 8318E) on the east coast of India. In geologi-
cal time history, this deposit can be considered relatively young and is of recent
Pleistocene origin (Mohan and Bhandari, 1977). These clays were deposited in a
seawater environment. From the standard soil exploration programme carried out at
this site, the soil prole obtained is as shown in Fig. 1. From the prole, it is observed
that fairly uniform and homogeneous soft marine clay is found up to a depth of 16.0
m below the seabed level and this layer is quite homogenous. The in situ shear
strength was measured using in situ vane shear apparatus (ASTM-D2573-94). These
measurements indicate in situ strength of 20 to 26 kPa with a sensitivity of about
3. The geological history indicates that this deposit is normally consolidated. How-
ever, the signicant carbonates (26%) present in the soil made it behave like overcon-
solidated clay. Below this layer, there is a hard clay layer of 5.0 m thickness overly-
ing soft disintegrated rock.
Undisturbed samples were obtained from the test pit in a sheeted enclosure at a
depth of 1.2 m by slowly pushing thin-walled 150-mm diameter polished stainless
Fig. 1. Soil prole.
1768 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
steel sharp edged core cutters whose area ratio is less than 8%. Further, the sides
of the cutter were smeared with silicon grease to minimise side friction while sam-
pling. Only from these large diameter cylindrical samples, samples were prepared
for consolidation tests and triaxial shear tests.
The index properties of this soil deposit are presented in Table 1. These properties
indicate that the soil is classied as clay soil of high plasticity, CH group and the
clay content ( 2 m) is 54%. This set of samples were taken from a depth of 1.5
m below the seabed and at this site, the water depth is about 1.52.0 m and from
this the effective overburden pressure is about 7 kPa. From the results of standard
consolidation tests conducted, the preconsolidation pressure P
c
based on Casagran-
des method is estimated as 75 kPa. This is marine clay with carbonate content of
26% and this soil is expected to exhibit considerable a cementation effect. The action
of cementation on interparticle bonding can build up strength which can nally result
in computed preconsolidation pressure at values higher than the actual overburden
pressure. A similar effect was earlier noticed by Brynt et al. (1967), and this phenom-
enon is termed as apparent overconsolidation effect. It can be noted that in this
area, it was difcult to support the existence of overburden pressure as much of
as 75 kPa at any stage and this is due to the cementation brought in by chemical
precipitation compounds.
3. Test apparatus and procedures
For the strength study, undrained triaxial shear tests as per ASTM D 4767-95
under both the strain rate-controlled and stress-controlled conditions were conducted
on undisturbed clay samples of 38-mm diameter and 76-mm height. All the pro-
cedures adopted and precautions taken during the testing were essentially as per
Bishop and Henkel (1962). Wyekeham Farrance make triaxial cells with internal
load cells which were used in the entire testing programme. The pore water pressure
was measured at the base of the sample using an HBM diaphragm-type pressure
Table 1
Properties of the soil
Properties
Natural moisture content (%) 8085
Liquid limit (%) 88
Plastic limit (%) 28
Consistency index 0.13
Clay (%) 54
Silt (%) 46
Fine sand (%) 0
Void ratio 2.13
Preconsolidation pressure Pc (kPa) 75
Carbonate (%) 26
1769 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
transducer and the axial displacements were measured using HBM linear strain con-
version transducers. All the observations were made through the controlled data
acquisition system (CDAS), which was linked to a personal computer to provide all
critical controls, timing and data acquisition functions for all the transducers. The
readings were continuously logged into the computer through a PCL 812 A/D chord
data acquisition system.
All the tests were conducted on fully saturated samples and full saturation of the
specimen was conrmed by measuring pore water pressure parameter B, which was
found to be 0.99. The samples were initially consolidated in the triaxial cell under
isotropic pressure for more than 24 h. In order to accelerate consolidation under
isotropic stress, lter paper side drains were placed as suggested by Bishop and
Henkel (1962). Soaked circular lter papers were also placed on the top and bottom
of the specimen. To minimise end friction, the loading plattens were lubricated with
silicon grease; in the bottom end platten, a 5-mm diameter ceramic porous stone
was embedded in the centre of the pedestal (Yasuhara et al., 1992). All the tests
were performed in a controlled temperature environment with uctuation limited to
0.5C. The strain control was done through a microprocessor-controlled drive system
capable of applying deformation rate varying between 0.0001 mm/min and 10
mm/min. In addition, this equipment has a unique pneumatic system controlled by
pressure regulators to apply conning pressure, as well as backpressure. All the
strain-controlled monotonic tests were conducted with a deformation rate of 0.85%
per h (0.01mm/min). This rate satises the criteria as dened by Blight (1964).
Both stress and strain rate-controlled monotonic triaxial shear tests were also con-
ducted in the same machine. The stresses were applied through Festo pneumatic
cylinders controlled by pressure regulators.
Cyclic triaxial shear tests were conducted under one-way cyclic loading. Cyclic
loading is imposed in the vertical direction and the loading pattern is of semi-sine
wave. Most of the research on the cyclic loading has used one way cyclic triaxial
testing where the cyclic deviatoric stress is purely compressive, such that the axial
stress remains the major principal stress and thus shear reversal does not occur. The
direction of the principal stresses is unchanged during testing, so degradation caused
by the continuous change of principal stress direction is not mentioned here. Many
offshore engineering problems can be solved from the data obtained from the one-
way cyclic loading (Yamanouchi and Yasuhara, 1975; Hyodo and Yashuhara, 1988).
The clay samples are subjected to cyclic shear stresses at some specied cyclic stress
ratios, CSR. CSR is dened as the ratio between the vertical cyclic deviator stress
and static undrained strength. It can be expressed as CSR =
cy
/ S
u
in which
cy
=
(s
1
s
3
)
cyclic
/ 2 = s
cyclic
/ 2, undrained strength, S
u
, is determined by conventional
undrained triaxial compression test. The selected range of cyclic stress levels in the
testing programme lie with in the range of small cyclic axial strains, which produce
irreversible deformation with no failure due to cyclic loading.
Loading frequencies of 10, 5 and 3 cycles/min (0.166, 0.083 and 0.05 Hz) were
chosen for the cyclic test. These frequencies were considered typical of some long
duration eld loadings induced by wave and wind action along the Indian coast. All
the tests were carried out at effective conning pressures of 50, 75, 100, 200 kPa
1770 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
and these pressures are within the normal working stress range for foundations in
this type of soil.
4. Strength behaviour
For proper understanding of strength and deformation behaviour of the cemented
soft clays, there is a necessity of comparing the results of consolidation with the
stressstrain relationships obtained from an appropriate shear testing. In the eld of
geotechnical testing, both the stress-controlled and strain rate-controlled tests are
commonly used. It is quite usual that stress-controlled tests are generally employed
in the consolidation tests and strain-controlled testing is usually employed in shear
testing.
5. Strain rate controlled test
5.1. Stressstrain behaviour under strain rate-controlled tests
A series of tests has been conducted on identical undisturbed samples at various
conning pressures starting from a low conning pressure of s
3
= 25 kPa to a high
pressure of s
3
= 300 kPa. Fig. 2 presents the stressstrain pore water pressures curves
obtained from these tests. It can be seen from this stressstrain plots for the tests
with s
3
up to preconsolidation pressure (s
3
P
c;
P
c
= 75 kPa), there are similarities
in many respects. Usually, for a normal uncemented clay at a similar high moisture
content, to install a sample in a triaxial cell without severe distortion, is extremely
difcult. In this case, there was no difculty experienced in keeping the specimen
and there was no distortion of samples during placement.
Up to a conning pressure of 100 kPa, it can be observed there is a steep increase
in the deviatoric stress; 90% of the ultimate deviatoric stress is mobilised at a strain
less than 1%. Such a steep rise is not expected in conventional normally consolidated
deposits. In comparison, for the test conducted at higher values of s
3
of 200 and
300 kPa, at 1% strain, only about 50% of the ultimate deviatoric stress is mobilised.
It is to be noted that all these samples are consolidated at isotropic stress only and
at zero shear strain corresponding to no shear load conditions, there cannot be much
of a difference in the fabric except the difference in the packing conditions of soil
particles. With an increase in conning pressures, the shear stress levels required to
affect failure are obviously on the increase. In fact, these higher levels of stress are
responsible for severe remoulding and the system is transferred to typical soft clay
corresponding to that of normally consolidated soil. From a controlled testing of
articially cemented clay in another investigation in this laboratory (Panda and Nara-
simha Rao, 1998) it has been established that at higher conning pressures, the undis-
turbed behaviour is slowly approaching a remoulded system.
It is further interesting to note the absolute values of pore water pressure developed
are relatively low, Skemptons pore water pressure parameter, A
f
varies from 0.15
1771 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
Fig. 2. Strainstress pore water pressure plot (strain rate-controlled shear test).
to 0.47. For such a type of soil with high moisture content, usually A
f
values are
reported to be high and even up to values of 1.0 are indicated (Bishop and Henkel,
1962). These low values of A
f
are indicative of cementation.
The initial portion of the stressstrain curve is the same for all the tests carried
out at different values of s
3
and this indirectly suggests that cementation bonds
control the deformation process in the initial stage and after the collapse of bonds,
deformations are controlled by stress levels.
The variations in A
f
valued are summarised in Fig. 3. The stressstrain curves
presented indicate the maximum value of A
f
reached even at s
3
= 300 kPa is 0.47.
The low values in soil are because of high carbonate and such low values have been
reported earlier by Demars et al. (1976).
5.2. Stress path evaluation
The effective stress path followed during shearing is shown in Fig. 4. These results
reveal that in the initial stages of loading (at low stress level), the soil behaves like
that of overconsolidated soil. It can be noted that at these stages, it is the bond
resistance of the cementation bonds, which is opposing the deformation process. On
1772 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
Fig. 3. Variation in A
f
values against conning pressure (strain rate-controlled shear test).
Fig. 4. Effective stress path during undrained strain rate-controlled shear tests.
further increase in the shearing stresses, the stress path shifts to that of the normally
consolidated behaviour. This is mainly, because of the increase in stress within the
soil system, the cementatious bonds get disrupted and the soil behaves like that of
normally consolidated clay. In the cemented soil, the generation of pore water press-
ure is found to be less. After the collapse of the cementatious bonds, there has been
a slight increase in pore water pressure and this is indicated by the increase in the
curvature of the stress path.
1773 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
5.3. Failure envelope
As a part of strength evaluation studies, it is necessary that condition at failure
has to be examined by plotting the results adopting a suitable failure criterion. As
MohrCoulomb failure criterion is widely accepted, the results are plotted in the
same format and presented in Fig. 5.The results plotted are in terms of effective
stresses corresponding to the stress conditions at peak deviatoric stresses. For stress
range up to s
3
= 100 kPa, the points do not fall in a straight line plotted through
the origin. At low stress ranges, the points fall above the straight line drawn through
the origin indicating an apparent cohesion. This phenomenon is studied in great detail
by Panda (1998) and in this investigation, it was noted that with the increase in the
stress levels in s
3
there is a good opportunity for disruption of bonds and the system
was approaching a remoulded system.
From the above discussion of results, it is observed that the behaviour of cemented
clays is different from that of other clays. The behaviour depends on the strength
of the cementation bonding and the bond strength can be considered as a function
of not only stress level within the soil, but also depends on other factors like strain
rate and type of loading. The cemented clays are more strain-sensitive. At stress
levels less than the preconsolidation pressure, they behave like elastic material and
beyond these stress levels the behaviour is elasto-plastic in nature, i.e. when the
shear stress exceeds the limiting values, the rate of plastic strains increases. This
cementation has introduced a certain amount of brittleness and this is conrmed by
steep stressstrain curves, but this behaviour has to be conrmed by shear tests under
stress controlled conditions.
In the cemented clays, the conventional strain-controlled tests may lead to overes-
timation of strength and underestimation of strains. Considering these aspects the
testing programme is further extended to stress-controlled testing.
Fig. 5. MohrCoulomb effective failure envelope for strain rate-controlled shear test.
1774 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
6. Stress-controlled shear tests
6.1. Stressstrain behaviour
Typical stressstrain curves obtained from stress-controlled shear testing are
shown in Fig. 6 and in this gure the various curves obtained from tests conducted
with different load durations of 30 min, 1 h and 2 h at each of the load increments
are presented (where h is the load duration in hours). The summary of the test results
is presented in Table 2. In order that strain-controlled test results are compared with
these results, all the important results of strain-controlled tests are also included in
the same table. In each of these stress-controlled tests, it is necessary to load the
specimen in seven or eight increments to reach failure conditions. There are typical
variations in failure strain with conning pressure and load duration used in the
incremental loading testing. At 100 kPa, this failure strain is between 12.7 and 16.5%.
It is to be noted that if this soil is tested with conning pressures up to s
3
= 100
kPa, the system can be considered to be with in the induced preconsolidation stage.
Further comparisons of failure stress as obtained from the stress- and strain-con-
Fig. 6. Strainstress pore water pressure plot during stress-controlled test at s
3
= 100 kPa.
1775 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
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1776 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
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1777 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
trolled tests reveal some typical interesting trends. For samples consolidated at s
3
= 100 kPa, there is a possibility of severe disruption of bonds because of higher-
level shear stress. In the strain-controlled test, the failure strain for sample tested at
s
3
= 25 kPa is 3.0% and this is increased to 8.3% at s
3
= 100 kPa. These bring
out that the failure strains are almost doubled in stress-controlled testing. It may be
noted that at the value of s
3
when once chemically induced bonds are thoroughly
disturbed, creep takes place to a signicant extent and hence there is an increase in
failure strain from 8.5 to 18%. This indirectly suggests that there is a better disruption
of bonds. In a soil like this, with a good amount of chemical bonding, the system
can be considered as that of a occulated one and if this soil is subjected to shearing,
there is a disruption in bonding encouraging a reorientation in particles and all this
causes a good amount of increase in pore water pressure with a consequent reduction
in effective stresses and further due to creep, the soil under stress-controlled testing
is becoming weak. For a similar testing carried out by Sangrey (1972) on cemented
sensitive soils, signicant reduction in strength under sustained loading is reported.
At this conning pressure (s
3
) there is a good amount of reduction in strength
and for these conditions the soil is overconsolidated and most of the contribution is
due to the cohesion, which is mainly because of cementation. It is not only the stress
level but also the duration of the shear process under sustained loading which plays
a signicant role in destroying the cementation. Consequently, greater changes in
strength can be expected at this condition. The percentage of reduction in strength
is further evaluated quantitatively. At s
3
= 100 kPa this reduction is 49%. In one
of the earlier investigation carried out by Casagrande and Wilson (1951) who brought
out the importance of strain rate in the strength testing, with increase in the time of
loading, there is a decrease in the strength especially in the clayey soils. Hvorslev
(1960) has explained the strain rate dependency in terms of rheological component.
In order that this rheological component becomes negligible the testing has to be
carried out be at very slow strain rate. The importance of the strain rate to be adopted
is further brought out by Bishop and Henkel (1962). Sangrey (1972) is one of the
rst few who brought out the concept of breakdown of cementation bonds in
cemented sensitive clays through testing under both sustained loading and under
controlled strain rate conditions. With increase in construction activities in coastal
areas in cemented soil systems and in quick sensitive clays, it is quite justied to
carry out shear testing under controlled stress conditions.
Cementation effect is wiped out partly during consolidation at high pressures and
partly due to disruption of cementation bonds at high level of shear stress mobilised
during the initial stages of shearing sample in this part of testing.
6.2. Failure envelopes for soil
From the summarised failure envelopes (Fig. 7), it can been seen that all the points
obtained from the test with s
3
up to 100 kPa fall more or less in a well-dened
straight line either passing through the origin or with minimal cohesion intercept.
The tests carried out with a slower duration loading (2 h) indicate the line passing
through the origin and this brings out that with the increase in the load duration, the
1778 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
Fig. 7. MohrCoulomb effective failure envelope for stress-controlled shear test.
cementation effect is becoming completely wiped out and the soil behaves as if it
is truly normally consolidated system. For the samples tested with load duration of
1
2
h and 1 h, there is a small amount of cohesion intercept. However the samples
tested at a very high conning pressures s
3
= 200 kPa (s
3
P
c
), there is slightly
different trend as indicated in the MohrCoulomb diagram. Denitely, there is a
marginal decrease in strength with increase in load duration, but these points joined
together by a straight line passing through the origin indicate a complete disruption
of bonds. It is interesting to note that this line is steeper than other lines and this
give rise to higher values of friction. The variation in moisture content during the
isotropic consolidation is shown in Fig. 8. The critical examination of failure water
content reveals particular trend for the rst four samples tested up to a conning
pressure s
3
= 100 kPa. During isotropic consolidation, the amount of water that has
come out is very small. But for the sample tested at s
3
of 200 kPa there is a good
amount of decrease in moisture content during isotropic consolidation phase preced-
Fig. 8. Failure moisture content plotted against conning pressure.
1779 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
ing the undrained shearing and the soil is more compact. However in the other
samples tested at lower conning pressures with in the range of preconsolidation
pressure there is practically no change in the moisture content, but with s
3
= 200
kPa, the system is completely retransformed into a normally consolidated system.
The average failure envelope for strain-controlled tests is shown by a dotted line in
the same gure. The strength components are further summarised in Table 3. For
the rst set of points obtained for s
3
up to 100 kPa, in strain-controlled tests, the
friction parameter is 28.1 with a marginal cohesion of C = 1.47 kPa. However,
under the same strain-controlled test, from the test conducted s
3
00 kPa, the f
value has been signicantly reduced to 20.5 and with practically no cohesion inter-
cept. This clearly suggests the inuence of the s
3
. In the case of the stress-controlled
test, for the test conducted up to s
3
= 100 kPa, the frictional parameter is further
reduced even up to 15 depending upon the load duration applied. However for the
test conducted for s
3
100 kPa the frictional parameter is higher and is nearly
21.9. These changes clearly bring out the inuence of cementation.
In the overall analysis of the results of undisturbed cemented soil, comparison of
the results of strain-controlled and stress-controlled reveal that at a given stress level,
strains are low in a strain-controlled testing, but are more in the stress-controlled
testing. This may lead to underestimation in strains. Hence, it is recommended that
in the case of strain-sensitive cemented soils, it is required to adopt a suitable stress-
controlled test to study the strength and deformation behaviour. Any stress-controlled
test with a load duration of 12 h under incremental loading is adequate enough to
take care of the stabilisation of pore water pressure.
7. Stress-controlled cyclic loading
These cyclic load tests were conducted at loading frequencies of 0.05 to 0.17 Hz
and these almost match with the wave frequencies along the Indian coast. Under
cyclic loading, the samples were tested at cyclic stress ratios (CSRs) ranging from
Table 3
Shear strength parameters
Type of test Effective cohesion (C) Effective angle of
(kPa) friction (f)
Strain-controlled test
Up to s
3
= 100 kPa 1.47 28.1
Above s
3
= 100 kPa 0 20.5
Stress-controlled test (up to s
3
= 100 kPa)
0.99 18.5 1
2
h Load increment
1-h Load increment 0.34 17
2-h Load increment 0 15
Stress-controlled test (above s
3
= 100 kPa) 0 21.9
1780 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
0.25 to 0.57 at a conning pressure of 100 kPa. The typical soil response observed
at a frequency of 0.16 is presented in Fig. 9, which shows the variations in cyclic
strain and pore water pressure response with the number of cycles.
7.1. Strain response
It can be observed that within a few cycles of loading, the deformation increased
quite rapidly and after a certain number of cycles, deformation is stabilised. During
the unloading stages of the cyclic loading there is elastic rebound in both defor-
mations and pore water pressures and this can be due to release of energy from the
system. In the rst few cycles of load application, most of the energy is absorbed
by the system, resulting in a good amount of plastic and permanent deformation and
residual pore water pressure. During the subsequent cyclic loading, at a given stress
value under subfailure condition, the rate of absorption of energy into the system
gradually decreases with increase in number of cycles and nally the soil system
attains a stable elastic equilibrium. With the increase in CSR, both strain and pore
water pressures increase with the number of cycles. From this it is evident that the
cyclic strains and pore water pressure are interrelated as observed earlier by Kout-
softas (1978) and Matsui et al. (1980). For the samples tested under CSR up to 0.35,
the increases in the deformation and pore water pressure are lower compared to the
Fig. 9. Variation in cyclic strainpore water pressure with number of cycles.
1781 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
values observed at higher CSRs and it is felt that cyclic loading has not signicantly
inuenced the behaviour. From the results presented in Fig. 9, it could be seen that
the testing has been continued up to 3000 to 9000 cycles. At CSR values of 0.26
and 0.35 strain is almost stabilised within 2000 cycles. However, at higher CSR
values of 0.53 and 0.57 it is necessary that testing has to be continued up to 9500
cycles for stabilising deformation. As the CSR is changed from 0.26 to 0.57 the
equilibrium strains reached are between 0.8 to 6.3%; but the system is stable without
physical collapse. However, as the CSR level is increased to 0.6, the soil sample
collapsed even at 2000 cycles. It is to be also noted that a few attempts were made
at CSR values greater than 0.6 and these tests could not be successfully completed
and in these, the samples collapsed at cycles less than 10. The results from these
tests are not reported in this paper.
By conducting a series of cyclic triaxial tests, Sangrey et al. (1969, 1978) has
dened a threshold cyclic stress ratio, which is dened as the maximum level of
cyclic stress that cannot not lead to failure during cyclic loading, regardless of the
number of applied load cycles. From these values, it can be considered that the
threshold limit in terms of CSR can be considered as 0.57 to 0.58 at a frequency of
0.17 and for any design purpose the threshold CSR can be considered as 0.57. It is
suggested that this threshold limit is considered as a function of stress history, cemen-
tation and frequency of loading. Incidentally, from another work carried out in this
laboratory (Rao, 1988) on marine clay with less cementation, a threshold CSR of as
much as 0.8 was observed. For another work carried out in Germany (Ritchwien
and Narasimha Rao, 1992) on North Sea marine clay, the threshold CSR is recorded
as 0.4 and this clay can be considered as overconsolidated clay. The degradation in
the system at CSR values higher than the threshold values of CSR can be explained
in terms of the rupture of cementation bonds. At higher stress levels, bonds become
ruptured and after a few cycles of loading, the soil behaves like normally consoli-
dated clay. Hence, there is an increase in permanent deformation and pore water
pressure as reported by Wilson and Greenwood (1974). Further, it is reported that
the application of higher cyclic stress ratio could lead to strain softening (Ishihara,
1985) leading to large shear strains and higher pore water pressures. Even though
there is no collapse, critical examination of the data reveals that there is a very slow
and continous increase in the deformation even after 2000 cycles of loading. It is
quite likely that at higher levels of CSR, the cementation bonds become ruptured
within 1000 cycles of loading and beyond this, more or less slow creep deformation
sets in.
7.2. Pore water pressure response
This aspect of collapse of bonds can further be explained in terms of pore water
pressures developed. From the results presented in same Fig. 9, it can be seen that
the development of pore water pressure is similar to the development in strains. For
stabilisation in pore water pressure, it requires more cycles than the number of cycles
required for stabilisation in deformation. At high values of CSR of 0.6 where collapse
is reported, there is a sudden increase in pore water pressure at the collapse stage.
1782 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
For the purpose of comparison, the strains and pore water pressures recorded in
monotonic shear tests conducted at a cell pressure of s
3
= 100 kPa, as shown in
Fig. 2, are used. In the conventional monotonic shear tests these samples have shown
signs of failure at an axial strains of 6.0% and pore water pressure of 28 kPa at
failure. In comparison, during the cyclic loading at a CSR of 0.26 and 0.35, the
maximum pore water pressure is recorded between 13 and 20 kPa. In cyclic tests at
CSR of 0.44 and 0.53, even though failure has not attained, the maximum pore
water pressure reached crossed the maximum value of 28 kPa recorded under static
monotonic stress-controlled shear test. At CSR of 0.57, the maximum pore water
pressure is 50 kPa. This clearly bring out at that at low value of CSR, cyclic loading
has no signicant inuence on both deformation and pore water pressure response
irrespective of number of load cycles. Beyond certain CSR values, the pore water
pressure is on the rise and this can also be explained in terms of Skemptons pore
water pressure parameter, A
cyclic
, worked out and presented in Fig. 10.
Fig. 10. (a) Variation in cyclic strain with CSR. (b) Variation in pore pressure parameter A with CSR.
1783 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
The strains vs. number of cycles are plotted in Fig. 10a and the variations in pore
water are presented in Fig. 10b. From these plots it can be seen that the maximum
levels at which the sample still remains stable is also controlled by the loading
frequency. At a frequency of 0.17 the maximum CSR at which the sample can remain
stable is 0.57 and this CSR level reduces to 0.47 when the frequency is reduced to
0.05. This is seen from the development of both deformation and pore water press-
ures. Lefebvre and LeBoeuf (1989) reports a similar reduction in the CSR with the
frequency of loading on Grande Baleine structured clay.
From the pore water pressure developments it is also observed that beyond CSR
of 0.35, the pore water pressures recorded even during the non-failure cyclic loading
conditions are more than the pore water pressure recorded at failure condition in
static shear. Beyond CSR of 0.35, A
cyclic
recorded for all frequencies are greater than
0.5. Such higher values of A indicated rupturing of bonds in the cemented soil sys-
tem. In contrast, for less cemented soil under normally consolidated conditions, low
values of A are reported by Rao (1988) in a similar type of marine clay. All these
clearly indicate that the cementation bonds have a major role in xing up the endur-
ance limits. The safe cyclic stress level to be used in the designs should consider
all these aspects of cementation, stress history and wave loading frequency.
7.3. Degradation during cyclic loading
Combining the sustained stress with the deformation observations, the results can
be evaluated in terms of deformation modulus, E
s
. The variation in this E
s
can be
used as a parameter of performance index and if this value is substantially reduced
during the cyclic loading, it can be taken as degradation in the system. In fact, this
index can be conveniently used in estimating the settlements and lateral deections
in case of structures subjected to cyclic loading. The changes in E
s
values under
cyclic loading have been worked out for a few typical cases and presented in Fig.
11. These refer to tests carried out at CSR of 0.26 and load cycles generated at
Fig. 11. Variation of modulus of compression with number of cycles.
1784 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
frequencies of 0.17 and 0.05; and those results correspond to threshold CSR of 0.57
at a frequency of 0.17 and CSR of 0.47 at a frequency of 0.05 are presented. In
each of the systems, there is a considerable reduction in E
s
and these E
s
values are
reduced to 1/3rd to 1/4th of the original values depending on the stress levels. Similar
reductions in E
s
values are reported by Koutsoftas (1978) in marine clays.
In order to bring out further analysis on the effect of number of cycles N and the
cyclic stress levels on the cyclic stiffness, the cyclic modulii at different cycles are
normalised with respect to the modulus at the rst cycle. This approach was proposed
by Idriss et al. (1978). Accordingly, the degradation index was dened as
d
E
N
E
I

s
d
e
CN
s
d
e
C1

e
C1
e
CN
(1)
where E
N
and E
I
are the secant modulii at cycles 1 and N, respectively;
C1
and
CN
are the axial strains at cycles 1 and N, respectively. The concept of this relationship
is to establish the backbone curve (i.e. the locus of the tips of the hysteresis loop)
for the degraded state (for the behaviour during the rst and subsequent cycles).
Because of this, at a particular strain level, , it is possible to relate the tip of the
loop in a cycle N to that measured in the rst cycle. Then the entire backbone
curve in cycles N can be related to rst cycle (non-degraded) backbone curve. This
degradation index is a measure of irreversible degradation process occurring in the
structure of the clay; therefore the d remains constant or decreases, but does not
increase during cyclic loading.
The variation in the degradation index, d with number of cycles for all CSRs are
presented in the Fig. 12. There is a steep reduction in this index within the rst 100
cycles. This drop can be considered from 1 to 0.4. Beyond this 100 cycles of loading,
there is a gradual reduction with cycles and this value is almost stabilised at values,
Fig. 12. Variation in degradation index with number of cycles.
1785 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
0.23 to 0.3. Thus, degradation conrms the softening in clay. With increase in num-
ber of cycles, the inuence of CSR and frequency of loading becomes less dominant.
Irrespective of frequency of cyclic loading, at the ultimate stages of cyclic loading
the degradation parameter of 0.2 to 0.3 can be conveniently used in the designs.
8. Post-cyclic monotonic shear behaviour
After getting more or less stabilised values in the strains during cyclic loading,
the cyclic loading is discontinued and the deviator stress is reduced to zero, and on
the same samples conventional shear tests are conducted till failure is reached. A
typical set of curves obtained for the test conducted for s
3
= 100 kPa is presented
in Fig. 13. For the sake of comparison, the stressstrain pore water pressure curves
obtained from the conventional shear tests on samples without precyclic loading is
also shown in the same gure. In this gure, the results obtained for six values of
CSR varying between 0.26 and 0.57 are presented. The stress levels recorded during
the precyclic loading are shown in the x-axis, corresponding to zero deviatoric stress.
These are the permanent residual strains recorded at the end of cyclic loading. From
Fig. 13. Strainstress pore water pressure plot during post-cyclic monotonic shear test.
1786 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
this stressstrain curves, it can be seen that under post-cyclic monotonic shear load-
ing, the curves are so steep and within a very small strain, more than 90% of the
ultimate deviatoric stress values have been reached. Moreover, these steep curves
have motivated earlier investigations to suggest that the cyclic load has introduced
brittleness in the system. Another interesting point to be noted is that there is no
phenomenal rise in the pore water pressure. Further, it is to be noted that the
maximum deviatoric stress recorded in all the PCMT indicate there is substantial
decrease in the strength. The maximum deviatoric stress values are compared with
the conventional stressstrain curves obtained and these indicate that at a very low
values of CSR of 0.28 the peak point almost merges with the deviator stress value
of that of conventional shear test corresponding to deformational level. This nal
deformation during the peak cyclic loading controls the strength values during the
precyclic monotonic test.
A study by Thiers and Seed (1969) showed that the reduction in the post-cyclic
strength is a function of the amount of strain during cyclic loading to which the
sample was subjected to a clay sample suffered before it is loaded monotonically to
failure. This strain-dependent hypothesis was conrmed by Lee and Flocht (1975).
It appears that the change in the post-cyclic strength is less prominent. The cyclic
loading produces cyclic strains less than half of the normal static strains to failure
(Lee and Flocht, 1975). Sangrey and France (1980) observed that the shear strength
is decreased by 50% as the cyclic strains approach the threshold level of repeated
loading from the data presented by Anderson et al. (1980) on Draman clay, it can
be observed that loss in strength is not so drastic even for large cyclic strain levels.
The effective stress path can be traced during the post-cyclic monotonic testing
stage and these stress paths are further summarised in Fig. 14. This particular plot
is mainly made for the results obtained at s
3
= 100 kPa. For the sake of comparison,
Fig. 14. Effective stress path for the post-cyclic monotonic test.
1787 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
the effective stress path recorded during conventional shear test is also shown in the
same gure. The average MohrCoulomb line plotted in terms of effective stress
obtained from all the conventional shear test for s3 = 50 to 200 kPa (which is also
shown in Fig. 5) is reproduced in the plot. From this plot it is quite clear all the
stress paths in respect of PCML conditions are always on the left of the stress paths
to that of conventional shear test. This is an indication that there is a considerable
amount of pore water pressure developed in the cyclic loaded sample. These stress
paths are shown for all the tests conducted at different values of CSR varying from
0.26 to 0.57. As pointed out at the few levels of CSR between 0.26 and 0.5, there
is a gradual decrease in the peak deviator stress and for the test conducted beyond
this threshold CSR level, the peak deviator stress level remains constant, even though
there is an increase in the development of pore water pressure. If the last points
from each of these stress paths are joined, they almost fall on a horizontal line. If
an attempt is made to join the peak stress point of the stress path only, they can be
connected by a straight line shown as a dotted line. For the tests conducted between
the CSR of 0.26 and 0.44, the MohrCoulomb line gives reduced values of C
1
and
f
1
. It is to be noted that the reduced values of the peak deviator stress denitely
indicate the reduction in the shear strength brought out by cyclic loading. The evalu-
ation in terms of C
1
and f
1
may not reect the true behaviour.
9. Conclusions
1. In cemented clays even at high moisture contents, the system is quite brittle and
failure occurs at lower strains level and the stress-controlled tests exhibit lower
strength values during monotonic shear testing. Further, with the increase in the
stress levels during testing, the differences in the strength values as estimated
from these two modes of testing, viz. stress-controlled and strain rate-controlled
tests become smaller. This work brings out that in cemented clays it is essential
that the stress-controlled testing need to be employed in estimating the strength
parameters to be used in the designs.
2. The safe cyclic stress level to be used in design should consider all the aspect of
cementation, stress history and loading frequency. In this cemented clay tested,
for the cemented soil system up to a CSR of 0.35, the cyclic loading has not
caused much of damage to the system. Beyond this CSR, the pore water pressure
developed under cyclic loading even under non-failure condition indicates higher
values in comparison with the pore water pressure recorded in the conventional
monotonic shear tests. Also the results show that an increase in the frequency has
a positive inuence on the absolute value of threshold CSR. These characteristic
CSR level depends on the type of soil, cementation level and stress history.
3. The cyclic strains and cyclic pore water pressures increase sharply in the rst
2000 cycles of loading and there after stabilises and remain almost constant with
additional loading cycles provided CSR is less than a particular value dened as
threshold CSR value of strain for nonfailure condition can be 6%. At higher values
of cementation, this equilibrium strain at threshold limit can be less.
1788 G.G. Moses et al. / Ocean Engineering 30 (2003) 17651789
4. The analysis of results presented suggests the effect of cyclic loading can be
summarised in terms of variation in terms of a single degradation parameter, d
and also in terms of variation in soil modulus, E
s.
For this cemented clay, this d
can be reduced to 0.2 to 0.3 and E
s
can reduce to one quarter the original value.
5. The post-shear tests, called post-cyclic monotonic shear tests, can also be conduc-
ted to bring out the damage caused by cyclic loading. Post-cyclic monotonic shear
tests reveal a substantial decrease in the shear strength values. The analysis made
in terms of effective stress path reveals considerable shifting towards the left
indicating a good rise in pore water pressure during cyclic loading.
6. At higher values of CSR, the nal point in stress path merges with the Mohr
Coulomb line plot of the conventional static shear test. However, it is to be noted
that this merging occurs at a reduced value of strength.
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