Predicting ground movements in London Clay

The necessity of accounting for small-strain behaviour of soils in numerical analyses of the serviceability limit states of geotechnical structures is well established both nationally and internationally. This has led to further development of appropriate soil constitutive models, as well as to further advances in accurate laboratory measurements of small-strain stiffness. The current paper considers recent laboratory research into the behaviour of London Clay, performed at Imperial College in conjunction with the major ground works for Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, UK. This research has shown the small-strain response of London Clay to be different to that assumed previously and in particular to that determined from good-quality commercial experiments. Both sets of small-strain stiffness data are applied in this paper in finite-element analyses of a deep excavation and a tunnel construction in London Clay, with the objective of investigating their effect on predicted ground movements.