Manufacture of samples of overconsolidated clay by laboratory sedimentation

The behaviour of a given soil depends on its state, defined in terms of stresses and specific volume or water content, and structure, which may be due to fabric and/or bonding. Stiff sedimentary clays will have a structure resulting from their deposition by sedimentation and in some cases from post-depositional processes. An important effect of this structure is to change the limiting combinations of stress state and specific volume at which such clays can exist.

Soil samples for testing are usually either undisturbed from the ground or reconstituted in the laboratory as slurry and then subjected to one-dimensional consolidation. Samples...