A Study on the Mechanical Behaviour of Pearl River Estuary Sediments

In this study, a large number of typical laboratory tests were undertaken to characterise the soils in the Pearl River Estuary for geotechnical design of an infrastructure project. This study reinterpreted the results of the oedometer and triaxial tests within the critical state soil mechanics framework. Non-unique normal compression lines were identified in the oedometer tests, whereas unique critical state lines were identified in the triaxial tests. This indicates that the strong forms of fabric in the intact samples were more prone to be broken down by shearing than by volumetric compression. In addition, correlations between the physical and mechanical properties of estuarine soils have also been proposed. The findings of this study form a database of soil characteristics for this region. The method of obtaining soil mechanical parameters from physical and index properties can be adopted for similar projects.