KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering Geotechnical Engineering

Copyright ⓒ 2019 Korean Society of Civil Engineers

DOI 10.1007/s12205-019-1652-3 pISSN 1226-7988, eISSN 1976-3808
www.springer.com/12205
TECHNICAL NOTE

Compression Index versus Natural Water Content Relationships

for China’s Coastal Soft Clays
Yanbin Gao*, Zhongqing Chen**, and David Airey***
Received August 21, 2018/Revised July 29, 2019/Accepted September 16, 2019/Published Online October 14, 2019

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Abstract
A large number of Cc - wn (Cc is the compression index and wn is the natural water content) correlations have been proposed by
researchers for different soft clays around the world, but comparisons of these correlations and reasons for differences between them
are rarely reported. In this paper the Cc - wn relationships of marine soft clays from eight China’s coastal cities are presented. It is
found that the north coast clays have larger slope of the Cc - wn relationships (about 0.02) than the south coast clays (about 0.008).
Comparisons with Cc - wn relationships for remoulded clays and structured natural clays reported by other researchers show the
importance of accounting for soil structure, and the higher compressibility and higher apparent preconsolidation stresses of the north
coast clays, in comparison to the south coast clays, are believed to be associated with chemical bonding and other post-depositional
changes. Most of the reported Cc - wn correlations for natural soft clays from around the world have slopes of about 0.011, which are
applicable to weakly structured clays. To develop a more widely applicable Cc - wn correlation, the effects of soil structure need to be
incorporated.
Keywords: soft clay, compression index, natural water content, soil structure, correlations
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1. Introduction (Goldberg et al., 1979; Cepero and Valeria, 2014). Up to now,

Correlations and empirical relationships are used extensively
in geotechnical engineering. The use of correlations and empirical
relationships provides a fast, cost-effective means of predicting
the value of a parameter based on the values of some other, more
easily determined, parameters. The compression index Cc is an
important parameter required for assessing settlements and
evaluating the compressibility of clay in the virgin compression
range. There are many empirical relationships (single and multiple
regression models) established between Cc and other indexes for
clay, such as liquid limit wL, plasticity index IP, initial void ratio
e0, dry density γd, clay content cp and natural water content wn.
Djoenaidi (1985) has summarized 73 single and multiple
regression relationships for remoulded clay and natural clay. For
remoulded clay, single regression models are often used and the
most used indexes are wL and IP. For natural clay, both single and
multiple regression models are used and the most used indexes
include e0 and wn besides wL and IP.
The linear Cc - wn model has commonly been adopted for
natural soft clay (Azzouz et al., 1976; Koppula, 1981; Nishida,
1956; Moran, 1958; Rendon-Herrero, 1983; Yoon et al., 2004),
although a non-linear model can possibly improve the correlation
dozens of Cc - wn relationships have been proposed for various
soft clays around the world, including Europe (Azzouz et al., 1976),
America (Azzouz et al., 1976; Koppula, 1981; Cepero et al.,
2014) and Asia (Adikari, 1977; Yoon et al., 2004). China has a
coastline length of about 18,000 kilometres and marine soft clays
have been deposited in these coastal areas with a range of
physical and mechanical properties. Since the end of the last
century the compressibility of these soft clays has attracted much
attention because of rapid development and the large number of
infrastructure projects undertaken in these areas. A large amount
of oedometer test data has been accumulated and various
empirical Cc - wn correlations have been proposed for the soft
clays along China’s coast (Wei and Hu, 1980; Gao et al., 1986;
Miao and Edward, 2007; Ding et al., 2011; Zhao et al., 2004;
Luo, 2012).
Many studies have focused on determining Cc - wn relationships
by regression analysis for the soils from a particular region or
regions. Comparison of the Cc - wn correlations obtained and
discussion of the reasons for differences between them can
provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms influencing
the soil compressibility. For example, Terzaghi et al. (1996)
compared a large number of the test data of a variety of silts,

*Associate Professor, Dept. of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China (E-mail:
yanbin_gao@tongji.edu.cn)
**Lecturer, Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics and Geohazards of Zhejiang Province, School of Civil Engineering, Shaoxing University, Shaoxing
312000, China (Corresponding Author, E-mail: q_chen_yk@163.com)
***Professor, School of Civil Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006 NSW, Australia (E-mail: david.airey@sydney.edu.au)

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 Yanbin Gao, Zhongqing Chen, and David Airey

clays and peat and showed that the Cc - wn relationship of soft

soils is strongly influenced by the soil structure. However, this
kind of research work is rarely reported and the factors that
influence the Cc - wn relationship are not quantified.
The purpose of this paper is to compare the Cc - wn relationships of
the soft clays from different coastal areas in China, so that the
overall characteristics of the compressibility of these soft clays
can be evaluated and be compared with each other. The
compressibility of these coastal soft clays in China will then be
compared with the reported Cc - wn correlations for various soft
clays around the world, and the influence of soil structure on the
Cc - wn relationships of the soft clays will be discussed. It should
be noted that this paper aims to compare and understand the
overall characteristics of Cc - wn relationships of different soft
clays, rather than to develop new and improved regression
analyses.

2. Basic Properties of the Marine Soft Clay in

China’s Coastal Areas

2.1 Deposition History

In the early Holocene (Q41, about 10,000 − 7,500 years ago),
which is after the Dali Glaciation (the Late Wurm glacial stage in
Europe) of the Late Pleistocene epoch, the climate of the earth
became warmer, glaciers started to melt and sea level rose. This
geological event is known as the Holocene transgression. In the
middle Holocene (Q42) period, which is about 6,000 − 5,000
years ago, the transgression reached its maximum in China as
shown in Fig. 1. Large amounts of sediments transported by
rivers, such as the Yellow River, Yangtze River and Pearl River,
were deposited between the limit of the Holocene transgression
and the current coastline creating extensive deposits of marine
soft clay.
The geomorphology of China's coastal areas is different to the
north and south of Hangzhou (HZ) Bay. The coastal areas to the
north such as Tianjin, Lianyungang, Shanghai and Hangzhou are
mostly low-lying, so the range of Holocene transgression is
much larger and the marine sediments are broadly distributed in
these areas (see Fig. 1). The coastal areas, to the south of
Hangzhou Bay such as Wenzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Guangzhou
and Shenzhen are hilly with small mountains, so the range of the
Holocene transgression is much smaller and the marine sediments
are distributed more narrowly in valleys in these areas (see Fig. 1).
The total thickness of these Holocene deposits are similar for
both north and south coasts and generally vary from 10 to 30 m,
increasing towards the current coastline, and as a result of their
Fig. 1. Holocene Transgression and Marine Soft Clay Distribution
in China’s Coastal Areas
recent origin they are geologically normally consolidated.
2.2 Plasticity
The soft clays are primarily comprised of silt sized particles
with clay contents, cp (particles < 0.002 mm) varying from 15%
to 56%. Particle size distributions of some typical sites are given
in Table 1. Sand contents are small and vary between 3 and 10%,
and the soils are predominantly comprised of fine silt and clay
(passing 5 mm). The mineralogies of all the Holocene deposits
are similar with quartz the predominant mineral and illite and
illite/smectite mixtures the main clay minerals. There is a tendency
for kaolinite to increase from north to south. The clays have low
organic contents and loss-on-ignition (LOI) values are mostly in
the range of 5 − 10%. The activities (IP/cp) of the soft clays are
generally in the range of 0.7 − 0.8, with higher values up to 1.3
apparently related to higher organic contents. Fig. 2 shows a
plasticity chart (plasticity index IP versus liquid limit wL relationship)
of representative samples of the coastal soft clays. It can be seen
that these soft clays are of intermediate to high plasticity. Most of

Table 1. Average Particle Size Distributions of Some Typical Sites

Particle size
Location Soil types
2 ~ 0.075 mm 0.075 ~ 0.005 mm < 0.005 mm < 0.002 mm
North coast (Lianyungang) Mud 7.1% 28.9% 64% 47.1%
North coast (Shanghai) Mucky clay 6.5% 47.7% 45.8% 24.7%
South coast (Shenzhen) Mud 6.6% 38.7% 54.7% 34.5%
South coast (Shenzhen) Mucky clay 5.5% 48.8% 45.7% 22.9%

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 Compression Index versus Natural Water Content Relationships for China’s Coastal Soft Clays
Fig. 2. Plasticity Chart of the China’s Coast Soft Clays (Selected
Typical Data)
the data scatter around the A-line and are parallel with it. There
is a slight tendency for the south coast clays (Wenzhou, Fuzhou,
Xiamen, Shenzhen) to locate below the north coast clays
(Tianjin, Lianyungang, Shanghai) for a given wL, which is
believed to result from higher organic contents in the south
coast clays. For each of the regions investigated, it can be seen
from Fig. 2 that there is a range of plasticity values and this can
be largely attributed to the variation of the clay content
(particles < 0.002 mm).
2.3 Void Ratio and Water Content
The void ratios, e, of the China’s coast soft clays are mostly
Fig. 3. The wn versus wL Relationships of China’s Coast Soft Clays (Selected Typical Data): (a) North Coast Soft Clays, (b) South Coast
Soft Clays
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between 1.0 and 2.0 and the associated water contents vary
between 35% and 75%. According to the Chinese Standard (GB
50021, 2001), these soft clays may be divided into two groups
based on void ratio: 1) “mucky clay” with e between 1 and 1.5
(35% ≤ wn < 55%); 2) “mud” with e over 1.5 (wn ≥ 55%). Figs. 3(a)
and 3(b) show data of natural moisture content versus liquid limit
for the north and south coast clays respectively. It can be seen
that the north coast clays are mainly mucky clay except for
Lianyungang clay, whereas the south coast clays have a much
wider range of moisture contents, with each region having a
mixture of mucky clay and mud. It is also apparent from Fig. 3
that the natural moisture content is slightly greater than the
liquid limit for all regions apart from Tianjin and on average,
for both North and South coast clays, wn is approximately 10%
greater than wL (wn ≈ 1.1wL). The Tianjin clay is different from
the other marine clays in having some sand laminates suggesting a
different depositional environment. Although, the liquid limit
wL is a property of fully remoulded soil it is apparent from
Fig. 3 that it provides a generally good indication of moisture
content of the natural clays and hence potentially correlations
with Cc. However, some variations in the relation between wn
and wL are to be expected because the natural moisture content
will depend on the sample depth (overburden pressure) and on
the soil structure which will depend on the sedimentary environment.
Generally, slow deposition in a still environment will produce a
more open (flocculated) structure and this together with lower
overburden pressures will result in higher wn for a given
material (wL). For most of the sites investigated the variation of
moisture content with depth is less than 15% and this will have
contributed to the scatter in Fig. 3 as there is no evidence of
systematic variation in mineralogy or particle gradation with
depth.
 Yanbin Gao, Zhongqing Chen, and David Airey
3 Cc - wn Relationships
3.1 Shanghai Clay (North coast)
In Shanghai the upper 30 m of sediments are comprised of four
clay layers, which are referred to as Layers 2, 3, 4 and 5. The
upper Layer 2 is a “hard crust” and this is underlain by three
layers of soft clay, Layers 3, 4 and 5, from top to bottom. These
three soft clays belong to the mucky clay group and have void
ratios between 1.0 and 1.5. Layers 3 and 4 are typical marine soft
clays and have higher water contents than Layer 5. Wei and Hu
(1980) collected a large number of oedometer test data from
Layers 3 and 4 and selected 106 high quality data with little
sample disturbance from which they proposed a Cc - wn correlation
for Shanghai soft clays as follows:
Cc = 1.843(0.01wn − 0.222), N = 106, SD = 0.064 (1)
In which N is the number of samples and SD is the standard
deviation. A similar relation was given later by Gao et al. (1986)
for the same Layers as follows:
Cc = A(0.01wn − B), A = 1.4 to 1.9, B = 0.15 to 0.21 (2)
It should be noted that all the wn values in this paper are the
percentage natural water content, and the Cc values are taken
immediately following yield, which provides the steepest slope
and hence the maximum values of Cc.
In addition to the two correlations above, the authors have
collected further data from 68 high quality oedometer tests on
specimens from Layers 3, 4 and 5 (Qian and Yang, 1981; Wang,
2011; Sun and Chen, 2011; Sun et al., 2010). The specimens
used by these researchers were high quality samples which were
either trimmed from block samples or carefully collected by a
thin-wall sampler, to minimise the influence of sampling
disturbance. Fig. 4 shows that these points are consistent with the
data and correlation proposed by Wei and Hu (1980) and that Eq.
(1) reasonably represents the Cc - wn relationship of the Shanghai
soft clays.
Fig. 4. Cc - wn Correlation of Shanghai Soft Clays
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3.2 Other North Coast Soft Clays
Miao and Edward (2007) have collected 216 oedometer test
data of Lianyungang soft clays, which are mainly mud having
higher natural water content (wn = 50% − 90%) than the Shanghai
soft clays. They proposed a Cc - wn correlation for their data as
follows:
Cc = 0.022wn − 0.704, correlation coefficient R = 0.91 (3)
The 216 data and the corresponding correlation are plotted in
Fig. 5. It can be seen that dispersion of these data is not
significant and there is a good correlation between Cc and wn.
North coast soft clays from Tianjin and Hangzhou, which are
mainly mucky clay, are similar to the Shanghai soft clays. The
reported data from 15 oedometer tests of Tianjin soft clay (Lu,
2007; Meng, 2009; Yang and Pan, 2007), and 8 oedometer tests
for Hangzhou soft clay (Li, 2005) are also plotted in Fig. 5. It can
be seen that the Cc - wn relationships of the three mucky clays are
very similar and moreover, the data from all the North coast
clays lie in a narrow band represented by Zone 1, the shaded area
shown in Fig. 5. The mean trendline and the upper and lower
limits, shown in Fig. 5, can be written as:
Zone 1, Cc = 0.0184wn − 0.41 (± 0.18) (4)
3.3 South Coast Soft Clays
Ding et al. (2011) collected 100 oedometer test data of Guangzhou
soft clays, which are mainly mud having natural water contents
of 45% to 100% (similar to the north coast Lianyungang clay),
and reported the following correlation:
Cc = 0.008 wn + 0.082, correlation coefficient R = 0.78 (5)
Correlations have also been reported for Shenzhen soft clays,
Fig. 5. Cc - wn Correlations of the Soft Clays of Four North Coast
Cities in China
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering
 Compression Index versus Natural Water Content Relationships for China’s Coastal Soft Clays

also mainly mud, by Zhao et al. (2004) who collected 347 oedometer
test data giving Eq. (6) and by Luo (2012) who collected 143
oedometer test data of western Shenzhen soft clay which gave
Eq. (7).
Cc = 0.008 wn + 0.063, correlation coefficient R = 0.82 (6)
Cc = 0.0092 wn − 0.0911, correlation coefficient R = 0.69 (7)
It can be seen that the three correlations have similar slopes,
of about 0.008, which are all much smaller than the value of
0.0184 obtained for the north coast clays. Furthermore, there
is more scatter in the south coast data with the three
relationships giving smaller correlation coefficients than Eqs.
(1) and (3).
The above three correlations were derived from oedometer
tests conducted as part of routine site-investigation practice and
thus the sample quality may be questionable. To check the
reliability of the correlations the authors have collected some
published test data, where samples were obtained using thin-
walled samplers and the original authors stated that the samples Fig. 6. Cc -wn Correlations of the Soft Clays of Five South Coast
were of high quality. These include results from 17 tests of Cities in China
Wenzhou soft clay (Wu, 2010; Wang and Gao, 2007; Li, 2007), 6
tests of Fuzhou soft clay (Chen, 1987; Deng and Zhuo, 2000; be expressed by:
Teng, 2005) and 4 tests of Xiamen soft clay (Yan and Wang,
Zone 2, Cc = 0.008wn + 0.025 (± 0.18) (8)
1990).
Figure 6 summarises the three correlations and the additional Comparing Figs. 5 and 6, it can be seen that the zones overlap
high quality data for the soft clays from the five south coast for mucky clay but as moisture content increases there is a
cities. It can be seen that the three correlations are similar and the significant difference between the data for Zone 1 (north coast)
additional data are broadly consistent with them. The Cc - wn and Zone 2 (south coast). For the same water content, the muds
relationships of the south coast soft clays can be generally from the north coast have higher Cc than from the south coast. It
represented by Zone 2, the shaded area shown in Fig. 6. The is interesting that these soft clays which have many similarities:
mean trendline and the upper and lower limits of the Zone 2 can mineralogy; activity; plasticity wL - IP, and the relation between

Table 2. Summary of Empirical Cc - wn Correlation Equations

No. Equation R N Soil type Source Reference
1 C =0.54(0.026w -0.35)
c n All clays Nishida, 1956
Organic soils, peat, organic silt,
2 C = 0.0115w Moran et al., 1958
c n
and clay
3 C = 0.0001766w + 0.00593 w − 0.135
c
2
n n Chicago clay Peck and Reed, 1954
4 C = 0.01w c n Chicago clay Osterberg, 1972
5 C = 0.01(w – 5) c n 0.79 717 3/4 from Greece and its environs Azzouz et al., 1976
6 C = 0.008w + 0.20
c n 0.77 113 Weathered and soft Bangkok clays Adikari, 1977
7 C = 0.0002 (w – 106.2727)
c
2
n Indiana soils Goldberg et al., 1979 Djoenaidi,
1985
8 C = 0.0133 (w – 12.1886)
c n Crawford upland Goldberg et al., 1979
9 C = 0.0147w – 0.213
c n 0.96 French clays Vidalie, 1977
10 C = 0.0093w c n 109
Cohesive soils in Alberta, Canada Koppula, 1981
11 C = 0.01w c n 109
12 C = 0.0126w – 0.162
c n Indiana soils Lo and Lovell, 1982
13 C = 0.01 (w – 7.549)
c n 0.94 94 All clays Rendon-Herrero, 1983
14 C = 0.85 × (0.01w )
c n
3/2
Finnish muds and clays Helenelund, 1967
15 C = 0.013(w – 3.85)
c n 0.73 278 Marine clay in South coast of Korea
Yoon et al.,
16 C = 0.01(w + 2.83) 0.54 603 Marine clay in East coast of Korea Yoon et al., 2004
c n 2004
17 C = 0.011(w – 11.22)
c n 0.67 356 Marine clay in West coast of Korea
Organic Silts and Clays in the Cepero et al.,
18 C = 0.0115w 0.81 27 Cepero et al., 2014
c n
southeastern coastal US 2014

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 Yanbin Gao, Zhongqing Chen, and David Airey
wL - wn present two very different Cc - wn relationships.
4. Comparison with Reported Correlations for
Other Soft Clays
Eighteen Cc - wn correlations (three nonlinear and fifteen
linear) reported by other researchers for various soft clays around
the world are summarized in Table 2 and shown in Fig. 7. The
data number N and correlation coefficient R, where available, are
also given in the table. The slope of the linear Cc - wn correlations
mostly varies in the range of 0.01 − 0.013, and a reasonable
average to these linear correlations is given by Cc = 0.011wn. A
zone 3 (the shaded area in Fig. 7) can be identified that encompasses
these linear correlations with upper and lower bounds given by
Lower limit of Zone 3, Cc = 0.0102wn − 0.1 (9)
Upper limit of Zone 3, Cc = 0.0131wn − 0.05 (10)
It may be noted that the non-linear correlations (Nos 3 and 7)
lie well outside Zone 3 suggesting the limited applicability of
these correlations at high moisture contents, and this is associated
with their extrapolation outside the range of the data from which
they were produced. It may also be noted from Table 1 that
different correlations (15, 16, 17) are reported for different
coastal regions around Korea.
Figure 8 compares the mean trends from Zone 1 and Zone 2,
denoting the north and south coast soft clays of China respectively,
with Zone 3 denoting most of the reported correlations. It can be
seen that the three zones overlap for moisture contents in the
range of 35% < wn < 55% (i.e., for mucky clay, as defined in this
paper), and significant deviations between the different correlations
only occurs when wn > 55% (i.e., for mud). Zone 1 representing
the north coast soft clays of China has obviously larger slopes
than Zone 3, while Zone 2 representing China’s south coast soft
clays has a slightly smaller slope than Zone 3. The distinct
difference between the north and south coast compressibilities
Fig. 7. Compiled Eighteen Cc - wn Correlations of Other Soft Clays
−6−
and the data lying outside the range of the correlations for most
other soft clays around the world suggests some unique
characteristics. While this may be partly the case, it is also true
that high compressibilities at higher moisture contents have been
reported by other studies. For example, the bounds of the data
from marine soft clays around Korea (Yoon et al., 2004) are
plotted in Fig. 8 together with data collected by Terzaghi et al.
(1996) which are shown by the dark points. Both these studies
show greater variability as moisture content increases with some
data presenting Cc values much higher than indicated by the
correlation equations. Terzaghi et al. (1996) suggested these high
values were a consequence of high structuration as the relation
Cc = 0.01wn agrees well with the data for a range of soils (clay
and silt deposits, shales and peats). Because of the similarities of
the basic properties of the north and south coast clays it is
suggested that structure is the reason for the differences in
compressibility and this is considered further in the next section.
5. Explanations in Terms of Structure Effect
5.1 Cc - wn Relations for Remoulded Clay
It is well known that soil structure in terms of fabric and
cementation strongly influences the compressibility of natural
clays (Burland, 1990). For remoulded clays which have dispersed
fabrics and no cementation, the compressibility, Cc*, is related to
the soil plasticity and there are good correlations between Cc* and
the plasticity indexes wL and IP. Typical correlations are:
Skempton and Jones (1944), Cc* = 0.007(wL − 7) (11)
Nagaraj and Murty (1985), Cc* = 0.0023wL·Gs (12)
Chong and Santamarina (2016), C = 0.008(wL − 5)
c
*
(13)
In which wL and IP are percent liquid limit and percent
plasticity index respectively, and Gs is the specific density of the
soil particles.
To develop a relationship between wL and the remoulded water
content wn* a typical depth or stress level is required. It is
assumed here that a representative depth can be taken where
vertical effective stress is 100 kPa, that is in the range from 10 to
15 m. It has been established that the void ratio at a vertical stress
of 10 kPa is approximately identical to that at the liquid limit
(Muir, 1990; Chong and Santamarina, 2016) and from the
definition of Cc* we know e100 kPa = e10 kPa − Cc*. Hence we can
obtain a relation between wL and wn* as follows:
*
* C c 100
wL = wn + --------------- (14)
Gs
Replacing wL in the correlations with this expression leads to
the relations shown in Fig. 9. It can be seen that the resulting
correlations between Cc* and wn* lie towards the low end of the
correlations for natural clays and in Zone 2 and are similar to the
south coast clays. Although the relation between Cc and wn for
the south coast clays is similar to those for remoulded soil the
compressibility of the natural south coast soils are higher
KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering
 Compression Index versus Natural Water Content Relationships for China’s Coastal Soft Clays
Fig. 8. Comparison of China’s Coastal Soft Clays with Others
because the natural moisture contents at depths of up to 30 m
tend to be higher than wL as shown in Fig. 3. Making allowance
for the difference in moisture contents it can be shown that the
compressibility of the south coast clays is about 50% greater than
the same clay when remoulded despite the similar Cc - wn
correlation. As noted by Burland (1990) and many others the
void ratios of natural clay deposits tend to be higher than the
same soil when remoulded, which can be attributed to the
conditions during sedimentation and the more open flocculated
structure that tends to be produced and this in turn leads to the
greater compressibility. Microscopic evidence of the more open
flocculated structure in some south coast China clays is
presented by Zhou (2013).
5.2 Effects of Structure on the Cc - wn Relationships
The flocculated nature of natural soft clays is one contributor
Fig. 9. Comparison of Cc* - wn* Correlations for Remoulded and Cc
- wn for Natural Clays
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Fig. 10. Structure Effects on the Compressibility of Soft Clay
to the fabric or “structure”. Structure can also arise from aging
effects, cementation and changes to the pore fluid chemistry
(Mitchell and Soga, 2005). The causes of structure can be
difficult to determine, but the result of increasing structure is to
increase the yield stress and the compressibility of the soil post
yield as illustrated in Fig. 10. For example, Terzaghi et al. (1996)
noted that structured soils display relatively high values of σy′/σv0′
(σy′ is the yield pressure and σv0′ is the in-situ vertical pressure),
and exceptionally high compressibility immediately beyond σy′.
High values of σy′/σv0′ can also occur due to post-depositional
effects such as ground water level changes and erosion, but for
China’s coastal clays the influence of reductions of effective
overburden are not significant as the clays are geologically
normally consolidated.
5.3 Analysis of the Structure Effect of China’s Coast Soft
Clays
It is postulated that the different compressibilities of China’s
north and south coast clays arises from differences in structure.
As discussed above there are two main components to the structure,
the first resulting from the conditions during sedimentation, which
creates an open flocculated fabric, and the second arising from
Fig. 11. Normalized SCL for China’s Coastal Soft Clays
 Yanbin Gao, Zhongqing Chen, and David Airey
post-depositional effects leading to cementation and enhanced
bonding between particles. In order to quantitatively evaluate the
soil structure of the China’s coast soft clays, some typical
borehole data were compiled and the normalized sedimentation
compression curves (SCL) were obtained according to the method
proposed by Burland (1990). Fig. 11 shows these SCL together
with the normalized intrinsic compression line (ICL) proposed
by Burland (1990). The normalizing parameter, i.e., void index
Iv, proposed by Burland (1990) is defined by:
* 6. Conclusions
e – e100
Iv = --------------
*
- (15)
Cc
in which e0 is the in-situ void ratio of the natural soft clay, e100* is
the intrinsic void ratio corresponding to an overburden pressure
σv0′= 100 kPa and Cc* is the intrinsic compressibility index of the
same soil when fully remoulded. The values of the two
parameters of e100* and Cc* were estimated using the empirical
relationships given by Burland (1990) from the wL. The distance
of the SCL above the ICL gives an indication of the degree of
flocculation or structure. It can be seen that both the north coast,
Lianyungang and Shanghai clays, and south coast, Shenzhen and
Guangzhou soft clays have similar locations in Fig. 11 and this
implies that the flocculated fabric is likely to be similar, given the
similarity of other properties as discussed previously.
It has been shown that the north coast clays have greater
compressibility than the south coast clays for the same wL, and
inspection of the oedometer test data also reveals that the north
coast clays tend to have a higher ratio of yield pressure σy′ to
effective overburden pressure σv0′. Also Gao and Chen (2017)
have reported that field shear vane tests show the south coast
clays are close to being normally consolidated, whereas the north
coast clays have higher OCR. For example, the OCR of Shanghai
soft clays decreases from 2.5 near the surface to 1.6 at a depth of
12 m. These differences in apparent OCR occur despite the
similar geologically normally consolidated conditions. A significant
difference between the north and south coast clays is the presence
of a weathered brownish “hard crust” which is commonly observed
on the ground surface of Shanghai and other north coast regions.
These sediments contain cementing agents such as carbonates
and iron compounds (Sun and Zheng, 1984), as pointed out by
Bjerrum (1967) on Norwegian clays, due to precipitation and
leaching some chemical bonding may be present in the underlying
soft clays. A good correlation between the iron ion content and
the undrained shear strength in the Lianyungang soft clay (Shao
and Liu, 2006) shows the role of iron in creating structure and
chemical bonding.
An indication of the significance of post-depositional changes
is provided by a correlation given by Gu (1983) for newly
deposited north coast marine soft clay (no chemical bonding)
under the seabed of Bohai Gulf which is as follows:
Cc = 0.008 wn − 0.024, N = 148, correlation coefficient R = 0.83
(16)
It can be seen that for this north coast soft clay, which has not
−8−
undergone weathering, the Cc - wn correlation has a smaller slope
similar to the south coast clays.
In the absence of other information for the cause of the
structure it is believed that the greater yield stress and compressibility
of the north coast clays is the result of weathering, leaching and
cementation post-deposition. Further study of the physico-chemical
characteristics of the clays is recommended to understand the
differences in the response of the soft clays along China’s coast.
Based on reported correlations and oedometer test data, this
paper has analyzed the overall characteristics of the Cc - wn
relationships of the marine soft clays along the north and south
coast of China.
The north coast soft clays have relatively large compressibility
with Cc of about 0.02, while the south coast soft clay have
smaller slope, Cc about 0.008. When wn is over 55% the north
coastal soft clays present much higher compressibility than the
south coast soft clays at the same wn. For all of China’s coast the
soft clays have similar mineralogy, similar wL - IP and wL - wn
relationships and similar normalized SCLs suggesting similar
fabrics. Structuration caused by post-depositional chemical
bonding is thought to be the cause of higher compressibility of
the north coast soft clay than south coast soft clay under the same
wn.
The Cc - wn correlations reported by other researchers for various
clays in the world mostly have a slope around 0.011 and these
correlations seems to be applicable to weakly structured soft clay
only. Structure effects in terms of chemical bonding may be the
key factor controlling the Cc - wn correlations of the soft clay
under high water content. This factor should be properly considered
if a general correlation for weakly and strongly structured mud is
to be proposed.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 41972273; No. 41772293; No.
40702051) and the China Scholarship Council (CSC NO.
201707910002). The supports from Zhejiang Public Interest
Research Project (Grant No. 2016C33052) and Shaoxing Public
Interest Research Projects (Grant No. 2015B70034) are also
appreciated.
ORCID
Not Applicable
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