See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/292213557

Characterization of reconstituted Malaysian kaolinite silts with varying clay

contents

Article  in  Japanese Geotechnical Society Special Publication · January 2016

DOI: 10.3208/jgssp.SEA-15

CITATION READS

1 755

2 authors, including:

Dominic E. L. Ong
Griffith University
65 PUBLICATIONS   374 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

BioSoil View project

Multi Scale Investigation of Post-Erosion Mechanical Behaviour of Granular Material View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Dominic E. L. Ong on 06 February 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Japanese Geotechnical Society Special Publication The 15th Asian Regional Conference on
Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Characterization of reconstituted Malaysian kaolinite silts with varying clay contents

Wong S.T.Y i) and Ong D.E.L. ii)

i) Research Scholar*, ii) Director (Acting)*

*Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Computing & Science,
Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak Campus, Jalan Simpang Tiga 93350 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.

ABSTRACT

In this research, the physical properties and stress paths of commercially available Malaysian kaolinite silts have
been made available for laboratory testings. Properties and behavior of the kaolinite silts with varying clay contents
have been studied in terms of particle size distribution, Atterberg limits and consolidated isotropic undrained (CIU)
triaxial tests. Through understanding the physical and mechanical properties of the kaolinite silts, the results will
form baseline data for the study of riverbank soils of Sarawak, which are dominated by similar high plasticity soft
silts. Linear but inversely proportional relationships have been established between the effective angles of internal
friction and the Atterberg limits. Hence, the designers may use the established equations to estimate the preliminary
effective angle of internal friction if the only available data is Atterberg limits.

Keywords: high plasticity, silts, slurry, consolidated undrained, triaxial, reconstituted

1 INTRODUCTION Nocilla et al. (2006) and Hyde et al. (2006). They

1.1 Research background
Riverine infrastructure namely jetties, ferry ramps,
wharves and bridges are commonly constructed in
riverbanks to facilitate movement of people and goods
along the many rivers in Sarawak, Malaysia. A
handful of damages and failures to riverine
infrastructure have been documented due to
detrimental riverbank soil movements. Prime suspect
is the lack of in-depth technical knowledge of
complex soil-structure interaction caused by the
detrimental soil movement as a result of large tidal
fluctuations and the complex behavior of soft
riverbank deposits, which is dominated by silts. In
order to understand aforementioned complex soil-
structure interaction, the kaolinite high plasticity
(MH) silts have been made available for
characterization so that an appropriate existing soil
model can be selected for numerical simulation in
future studies. In addition, as most of the riverine
infrastructure serves the rural areas which comes with
limited implementation budget, an easy and more cost
effective identification method to characterize the
riverbank deposits will be beneficial to designers.
2 MOTIVATION
Much research has been carried out on low
plasticity silt (ML), namely by Wang and Luna (2012),
Boulanger and Idriss (2006),
mainly worked on the characterization and/or
mechanical properties of ML. However, it was found
that very limited studies have been carried out to
understand the behavior of MH. Therefore, the
authors attempt to use Atterberg Limits test, which is
simple, realiable and relatively less expensive
characterize MH and to correlate with the effective
angle of internal friction.
3 MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Four types of commercially available kaolinite
powder with varying clay contents, namely KM20,
KM25, KM35 and KM55 were used to prepare the
reconstituted kaolinite samples. The kaolinite was
mined from Perak State in Malaysia at depths
between 4.5 m and 6.0 m below ground. Aluminum
silicate is the predominant chemical constituent of
kaolinite. Reconstituted kaolinite samples were ideal
in this study because kaolinite: (i) has appropriate
ranges of particle sizes (silt and clay fractions); (ii) is
relatively less expensive than obtaining undisturbed
soil samples from the field; and (iii) tests can be
consistently repeated with confidence.
4 LABORATORY TESTING PROGRAM
British Standards BS1377-2 (1990) and ASTM
D4318 (2010) were adopted for determination of
Liquid Limit (LL), Plastic Limit (PL) and Plasticity

http://doi.org/10.3208/jgssp.SEA-15 478
Index (PI) of the specimens. The Casagrande method maximum value of 100 kPa was applied onto the
was used to determine the LL. BS1377-2 (1990) was slurry progressively. After the consolidation stage, the
used as guidelines to perform the sieve and kaolinite samples were extruded using a universal
hydrometer analyses since the hydrometer apparatus extruder. The reconstituted kaolinite samples were
conforms to the British Standards. The Consolidated then trimmed to 38 mm and 76 mm in diameter and
Isotropic Undrained (CIU) triaxial tests were height, respectively.
performed based on Head (1998) in order to
determine the effective stress paths, deviator stresses 6 SOIL PROPERTIES
at failure (qf), effective angle of internal friction (φ’), From the sieve and hydrometer analyses, the
critical state lines (CSL) and changes in sample particle size distribution of kaolinite samples are
pressures (∆u). Strips of filter paper were attached on shown in Fig. 1. The clay contents (<2 µm) of KM20,
the sides of the specimens for radial drainage as per KM25, KM35, and KM55 were found to be 10.95%,
specifications in Head (1998). The specimens were 19.50%, 21.12%, and 24.38%, respectively, while the
saturated by applying back pressures until Skempton’s silt contents (2 µm – 60 µm) of KM20, KM25, KM35,
pore pressure parameter (B) value of at least 0.98 was and KM55 were 84.61%, 79.62%, 78.00%, and
achieved. The CIU tests were carried out for different 74.75%, respectively.
pre-consolidation pressures (p’c) or effective
confining pressures of 100 kPa, 200 kPa and 300 kPa.
As the time taken for consolidation was shorter than 2
hours for all specimens, a minimum of 2 hours was
considered in order to calculate the required shearing
rates as suggested by Head (1998). As such, a
shearing rate of 0.07 mm/min was adopted. Similar
shearing rate was also reported in Pilllai et al. (2011).
The types and quantity of tests conducted on the
reconstituted kaolinite samples are summarized in
Table 1 while the CIU test abbreviations are tabulated
in Table 2.

Table 1. Summary of number of the conducted tests.

Tests KM20 KM25 KM35 KM55

LL, PL & PI 1 1 1 1
Fig. 1. Particle size distribution of kaolinite samples.
Sieve & Hydrometer 1 1 1 1
CIU 3 3 3 3 The LL, PL and PI of the kaolinite samples are
summarized in Table 3. The reconstituted kaolinite
Table 2. Abbreviations of CIU tests. samples are classified as high plasticity silt (MH) in
accordance to ASTM D2487 (2000). The LL, PL and
Effective confining pressures (p’c)
PI of kaolinite samples are found to be directly
Specimens 100 200 300
KM20 KM20 - 100 KM20 - 200 KM20 - 300 proportional to the clay contents (CL) of the kaolinite
KM25 KM25 - 100 KM25 - 200 KM25 - 300 samples as shown in Fig. 2. The correlation equations
KM35 KM35 - 100 KM35 - 200 KM35 - 300 are as shown below:-
KM55 KM55 - 100 KM55 - 200 KM55 - 300
LL = 0.9917 * CL + 40.4528 R2=0.980 (1)
5 SAMPLE PREPARATION PL = 0.3450 * CL + 40.3293 R2=0.752 (2)
Use of reconstituted kaolinite samples by PI = 0.6467 * CL + 0.1235 R2=0.783 (3)
consolidation of the soil-water mixture in the form of
slurry state is a common approach in the laboratory Table 3. LL, PL and PI of the kaolinite samples.
(Pillai et al. 2011; Wang and Luna 2012). Firstly, the
Soil
kaolinite powder was mixed with distilled water at a Samples LL PL PI
Classification
water content of 1.50 times its liquid limit. The water- KM20 52 44 7 MH
soil mixture was mixed thoroughly in an automatic KM25 59 48 11 MH
soil mixer to form slurry. For the CIU sample KM35 62 46 16 MH
preparation, silicon grease was applied on the inner KM55 64 49 15 MH
surfaces of the 38 mm diameter sampling tubes before
the slurry was poured into the tubes. Subsequently,
an increasing vertical consolidation pressure with a

479
 The slipping and deformation along the weaker
plane of kaolinite platelets might have occurred
resulting in the post peak strain-softening behavior.
Sachan and Penumandu (2007) obtained similar
results during the investigation of reconstituted
kaolinites with different microfabrics. Their works
further assured that the increment of effective
confining pressures has remolded the flocculated
microfabric to dispersed microfabric, thus, the
reconstituted kaolinite samples have shown strain
softening at higher effective confining stresses.

Fig. 2. Linear relationship between clay contents and LL, PL

and PI of kaolinite samples.

7 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

7.1 Isotropically consolidated undrained (CIU)
tests
Fig. 3 to Fig. 6 show the results of CIU tests
carried out on kaolinite samples consolidated under
different effective confining pressures. The deviator
stresses at failure (qf) increased when the clay
contents decreased from KM55 to KM20 as shown in
Fig. 3. Fig. 3 also shows that the kaolinite samples
experience strain softening after reaching qf at higher
effective confining pressures of 200 kPa and 300 kPa
but experience strain hardening at lower effective
confining pressure of 100 kPa. Apparently,
reconstituted kaolinite samples exhibited flocculated
(randomly-oriented particles) microfabric at lower
effective confining stresses. At higher effective
confining stresses, the reconstituted kaolinite samples Fig. 3. Stress-strain behavior of kaolinite samples subjected to
exhibited dispersed (parallel-oriented particles) CIU tests.
microfabric behavior due to the remoulding of
flocculated mircrofabrics or the initially randomly The effective stress paths in Fig. 4 were plotted in
oriented particles were displaced and reoriented to the Cambridge stress space with equation 4 in the
dispersed microfabrics during the increment of the abscissa and equation 5 in the ordinate.
applied effective confining stresses. Lambe and
σ '1 +2σ ' 3
Whitman (1969) stated that the flocculated p' = (4)
microfabric tended to line up into the dispersed 3
microfabric or move towards a parallel array and
q = σ '1 −σ ' 3 (5)
tended to destroy bonds between the particles when
subjected to compression and thus, termed Wang and Luna (2012) has also used similar
“remolding” which must be differentiated from approach to understand the stress paths of silts. The
“reconstituting”. effective stress paths of KM20 with the lowest clay
Furthermore, Pillai et al. (2011) investigated the content of 10.95% curved away from the origin of
different microfabrics of reconstituted kaolinites, mean effective normal stress (p’) but the effective
namely dispersed and flocculated microfabrics. They stress paths of KM25, KM35 and KM55 with higher
found that the flocculated samples exhibited strain clay contents curved towards the origin of p’. Fig. 5
hardening behavior whereas dispersed samples shows the pore-pressure behavior of the kaolinite
exhibited a peak stress followed by a strain softening samples. More dilative behavior or reduction in pore
behavior. In addition, they also reported that the pressures after peaks are reached, can be seen from
dispersed microfabric offer higher initial resistance to the kaolinites with lower clay contents (approaching
the applied deviator load before the peak. to sand-like behavior) than the kaolinites with higher

480
 clay contents. This is consistent with one of the
classifications of Boulanger and Idriss (2004) for
sand-like materials that the effective stress paths of
sand-like materials in undrained shearing show an
initially contractive response followed by a transition
to an incrementally dilative response.
If the effective stress paths in Fig. 4 is projected
onto the p’-v space, the outcome is shown in Fig. 6.
As drainage was not allowed during the shearing
stage of the sample, the effective stress paths in p’-v
space was only expected to move horizontally since
undrained shearing occurred at constant specific
volume. It is observed that the CSL and the NCL are
not unique as shown in Fig. 6 for the kaolinite with
the lowest clay content (KM20) due to the plasticity
index of KM20 being the lowest at 7.27% compared
to other samples, which have PI values greater than
10%.Similar observation non-parallel CSL and NCL Fig. 4. Effective stress paths of kaolinite samples subjected to
curves was also reported by Wang and Luna (2012) in CIU tests
their study of Triaxial compression test on the
Mississippi River Valley Silt with PI of 6%.
7.2 Critical state
The deviator stresses at failure (qf) can be
identified when any one of the following conditions
are achieved: (i) maximum principal stress ratio
(σ’1/ σ’3) and (ii) ‘critical state’ condition i.e. constant
deviator stress and pore pressure. The corresponding
values of strain and pore pressure are axial strain at
failures (εf) and pore pressure at failure (uf),
respectively (Head 1998). The works of Wang and
Luna (2012) have shown that the criteria of maximum
principal stress ratio always give a consistent
estimation of effective friction angle. Hence, the
maximum principal stress ratio method has been used
to identify the qf.
Table 4 summarizes the results of the CIU tests
performed on the reconstituted kaolinite soils. Based
Fig. 5. Pore pressure-strain behavior of kaolinite samples
on the p’f and qf from Table 4, the CSLs of subjected to CIU tests.
reconstituted kaolinite soil samples are then
determined, as shown in Fig. 7. The slope of the CSL
increased when the clay contents of the reconstituted
kaolinite soils reduced. The slope of the CSL is M
and the effective angle of internal friction (φ’) can be
back-calculated using equation 6.
3M
sin φ ' = (6)
6+ M
Similar approach has also been used by Wang
and Luna (2012) to find the φ’ value. The M and φ’ of
the kaolinite soils have been summarized in Table 5.

Fig. 6. Specific volume of kaolinite samples subjected to CIU

tests.

481
Table 4. Results of CIU tests. r,the observed scatters in their data sets could be due t
Sample p'c p'f qf uf εaf o the variation of silt and sand contents.
s (kPa) (kPa) (kPa) (kPa) (%)
100 134.16 189.47 23 18.0
KM20 200 199.01 258.02 83 13.0
300 290.10 360.31 124 17.0
100 106.27 141.82 39 12.5
KM25 200 173.88 206.65 95 10.5
300 257.86 278.57 134 11.5
100 87.92 113.75 47 18.5
KM35 200 195.44 211.33 75 16.5
300 222.80 239.41 154 10.0
100 78.69 89.07 47 12.5

KM55 200 159.46 160.38 94 9.5

1 Fig. 8. Relationship between clay contents effective angle of
300 223.05 231.16 149 0.5 internal friction.
7.3 Correlation between Atterberg limits and
effective angle of internal friction (φ’)
By combining the equations 1, 2 and 3 with
equation 7, a relationship between the Atterberg limits
and effective angle of internal friction (φ’) can be
established. The relationships are shown as equations
8, 9 and 10 below:-
φ ' = 51.4363 − 0.3942 * LL ; 50 ≤ LL ≤ 70 (8)

φ ' = 81.1846 − 1.133 * PL ; 40 ≤ PL ≤ 50 (9)

φ ' = 35.566 − 0.6044 * PI ; 0 ≤ PI ≤ 20 (10)

The above equations can be used to obtain the

preliminary design effective angle of internal friction
Fig. 7. CSL of reconstituted kaolinite samples.
for high plasticity silts if the only available data to the
designers is Atterberg limits. Fig. 9 shows the
Table 5. Slope of CSL and effective angle of internal friction. established equations fit well to the measured data of
LL, PL and PI against the φ’.
M φ(°)
KM20 1.2596 31.37
KM25 1.1215 28.19
KM35 1.0621 26.81
KM55 1.0105 25.62

The relationship between the clay contents and

effective angles of internal friction are indirectly
proportional as shown in Fig. 8. The correlation
between clay contents (CL) and effective angle of
internal friction (φ’) is
φ ' = −0.3909 * CL + 35.4197 R2=0.814 (7)

with coefficient of determination (R2) equals to 0.814,

which is rather reliable. Similarly, Nicolla and Coop
(2008) conducted CIU triaxial tests on alluvial sedime
nts from the flood plain of Po River in Italy with C
L% ranging from 16% to 25.5% and PI ranging from
13.1 to 16.2%. It was found that the back-calculated φ Fig. 9. Relationship between Atterberg limits and effective
showed similar inverse correlation with CL. Howeve angle of internal friction.

482
8 CONCLUSIONS
(i) Reconstituted Malaysian kaolinite of high
plasticity silts (MH) with varying clay contents were
used to investigate the transitional behavior of silts at
low PI. The Atterberg limit, dry sieving, hydrometer,
CIU and oedometer tests were conducted on these
reconstituted samples to characterize the behaviors of
the samples.

(ii) In the v - ln p’ space derived from the CIU

tests, the gradients of the respective CSLs seem to be
approaching to the same gradient of the NCLs when
the PI of the reconstituted kaolinites increased
progressively from KM20, KM25, KM35 to KM55.
KM55 demonstrates clay-like behavior with PI value
of 15% while KM20 exhibited sand-like behavior
with PI value of 7%.

(iii) Equations (8) - (10) have been established

between Atterberg limits and effective angle of
internal friction which can be used for estimating the
preliminary design angle of internal friction for MH
silts.

REFERENCES
1) ASTM. (2010): Standard test methods for liquid limit,
plastic limit, and plasticity index of soils, D4318, West
Conshohocken, PA.
2) Bounlanger, R., and Idriss, I.M. (2004): Evaluating the
potential for liquefaction of cyclic failure of silts and clays,
Center for Geotechnical Modeling, University of California,
Davis, 1-131.
3) Boulanger, R., and Idriss, I.M. (2006), Liquefaction
susceptibility criteria for silts and clays, J. Geotech.
Geoenviron. Eng., 132(11), 1413-1426.
4) BS 1377-2. (1990): Methods of test for Soils for civil
engineering purposes, Classification tests. British Standards
Instituition, London.
5) Burland. J.B. (1990): On the compressibility and shear
strength of natural clays, Geotechnique, 40(3), 329-378.
6) Head, K. H. (1998): Manual of soil laboratory testing,
Volume 3: Effective stress tests, Wiley, Singapore.
7) Hyde, A.F., Higuchi, T., and Yasuhara, K. (2006):
Liquefaction, cyclic mobility, and failure of silt, J. Geotech.
Geoenvron. Eng., 132(6), 716-735.
8) Nocilla, A., Coop, M.R., and Colleselli, F. (2006): The
mechanics of an Italian silt: an example of ‘transitional’
behavior, Geotechnique, 56(4), 261-271.
9) Pillai, R, Robinson, R.G., and Boominathan, A. (2011):
Effect of microfabric on undrained static and cyclic
behaviour or kaolin clay, J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng.,
137(4), 421-429.
10) Roscoe, K.H., and Burland, J.B. (1968): On the
generalized stress-strain behavior of ‘wet’ clay, Engineering
Plasticity, J, Heyman and F.A. Leckie eds, Cambridge
University Press, 535-609.
11) Sachan, A., and Penumadu, D. (2007): Effect of
microfabric on shear behavior of kaolin clay, J. Geotech.
Geoenviron. Eng., 133 (3), 306-318.

483

View publication stats