Shear strength characteristics of a silty clay

Shear strength of soils is an important engineering aspect because shear strength characteristics are widely used in various applications such as bearing capacity and earth pressure of soils. Shear strength of sands is somewhat simpler than that of clays, which are complex materials exhibiting engineering behaviour difficult to predict. Shear strength of clays depends of water content, drainage conditions, rate of loading and degree of compaction.Unconfined compression tests were performed on cylindrical samples compacted at different remoulded densities chosen from the compaction curves of the soil. Proctor compaction tests were performed on the soil at three different compaction energies corresponding to N=25, 35 and 50. Dry densities of test samples corresponding to water contents of 10%,12% and 14% were chosen from the three compaction curves pertaining to N=25,35 and 50. Remoulded cylindrical samples were prepared for the performance of unconfined compression tests at the above dry densities and water contents. Stress strain characteristics, variation of peak compressive stress with significant parameters were studied.