Prof. D. N. Singh

MANDAR KULKARNI

M.Tech.
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India mpkcool_82@yahoo.co.in

CHARACTERIZATION OF CLAYS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN COASTAL AREAS

Demand for infrastructure development in coastal regions, where clays are found in the subsurface, primarily, is continuously increasing to cater requirements of rapid industrialization. This calls for adoption of suitable ground improvement/modification techniques to lay foundations of the structures overlain on these soils. However, for this purpose engineering properties of such clays is required as major input parameters. This necessitates extensive soil investigation, which is time consuming and expensive, and may not be essential to initiate the project. Under such circumstances, empirical correlations that are based on the properties of these clays, which can be obtained by random soil sampling from the site and testing in the laboratory, becomes quite useful and handy for proper planning and execution of the project. Though, several efforts have been made by previous researchers in this direction, they are mostly site-specific and limited to correlations between certain parameters, only. This calls for development of correlations, which are not site-specific and quite generalized in nature. With this in view, undisturbed clay samples from various on- and off-shore locations in India, where major infrastructure projects are presently being executed, were collected. These samples were tested for their physical, chemical, mineralogical and geotechnical characteristics. In addition to this, shear wave velocity of these samples was determined by using bender elements, which are piezo-ceramic elements. Based on these investigations, correlations that can be employed for determining engineering properties of clays either by using the parameters that can be obtained by conducting routine laboratory investigations, easily, or by resorting to the latest techniques such as Time Domain Reflectometry, have been proposed. It has been demonstrated that these correlations would be quite useful for determining engineering properties of clays, which are found in coastal regions, precisely.