Kumar, G. V. & Muir Wood, D. (1999). Geotechnique 49, No.

6, 727739

Fall cone and compression tests on claygravel mixtures

G . V. K U M A R  a n d D. M U I R WO O D {
Nous avons fait des essais a la chute avec un
cone sur des melanges de kaolin et de gravier
n, et de la, nous avons determine la variation
de la limite liquide en fonction du contenu
argileux et le lien entre resistance au cisaillement non draine et contenu en eau pour differentes teneurs argileuses. Nous avons observe un
changement marque des reponses quand la teneur argileuse tombe en dessous de 40% environ. Des essais de compression en une seule
dimension ont ete faits dans un dometre hydraulique et dans un tube de consolidation : ces deux
dispositifs ont donne des resultats similaires.
Encore une fois, nous avons observe un changement dans le caractere de la reponse dans les
teneurs argileuses inferieures a environ 40%.
Pour les teneurs argileuses superieures a environ
35%, c'est la matrice d'argile seule qui controle
le comportement mecanique du melange. Le
gravier ne commence a inuencer ce comportement que lorsque la fraction du volume granulaire atteint environ 045.

Fall cone tests have been performed on mixtures

of kaolin and ne gravel, from which both the
variation of liquid limit with clay content and
the link between undrained shear strength and
water content for different clay contents have
been determined. A sharp change in response is
observed when the clay content falls below about
40%. One-dimensional compression tests have
been performed in a hydraulic oedometer and
in a consolidation tube: both devices gave similar results. Again a change in character of response is observed at clay contents below about
40%. For clay contents above about 35% it is
the clay matrix alone which controls the mechanical behaviour of the mixture. The gravel only
begins to inuence the behaviour when the
granular volume fraction reaches about 045.

KEYWORDS: clays; compressibility; gravels; laboratory tests; shear strength; soil classication.

clay contents down to about 2030%. These studies have used rather ne particles of granular
material in order that the procedures that are used
to determine the liquid limit should not be unduly
affected by the presence of the coarse material.
However, the fall cone technique for estimation of
the liquid limit, now adopted as standard in many
countries (e.g. British Standards Institution, 1991)
can readily be used with any soil mixture that can
be compacted into the testing containerthe presence of particles of size greater than 0425 mm,
which should be excluded according to the standard procedures, does not prevent the cone from
penetrating the soil. In addition, as has been known
for many years (Statens Jarnvagars Geotekniska
Kommission 19141922, 1922; Wroth & Wood,
1978; Muir Wood, 1990), the fall cone can be used
to do more than just estimate the liquid limit.
Since the act of penetration by the fall cone is
controlled by the strength of the soil, the device
provides directly a strength measurement (equivalent to a hardness test for metals) and, by invoking
ideas of critical state soil mechanics, the link
between cone penetration and water content itself
provides an indication of the compressibility of the
soil.

INTRODUCTION

As part of a programme to explore the way in

which the presence of non-clay constituents inuences the mechanical properties of clay soils, tests
have been performed on saturated mixtures of
kaolin clay with varying proportions of ne gravel.
In the present paper, results of tests performed
using a fall cone (to determine the link between
undrained strength and water content at water
contents around the liquid limit) and using oedometers (to determine the compressibility characteristics) are reported. Full details of all tests on
the mixtures have been reported by Kumar (1996).
Previous studies of index properties of mixtures
of sand and clay (e.g. Seed et al., 1964;
Dumbleton & West, 1966; Nagaraj et al., 1987;
Tan et al., 1994) have generally concluded that the
liquid limit falls linearly with the clay content for

Manuscript received 17 May 1998; revised manuscript

accepted 30 June 1999.
Discussion on this paper closes 30 June 2000; for further
details see p. ii.
 Andhra University, Visakhapatnam.
{ University of Bristol

727

728

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

Typical of the observations of the compression

behaviour of mixtures of ne sand and clay are the
results presented by Graham et al. (1989) on a
compacted sandbentonite mixture proposed as a
buffer for containment of radioactive and other
waste materials. They show a more or less monotonic link between compressibility and clay content. This link has been explored further in the
present work, using ne gravel as the granular
constituent, and the compressibility results have
then been compared with those that have been
deduced from the fall cone tests and with other
published normalized results.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE

Fall cone tests

The materials used to form the mixtures were
kaolinite clay and ne gravel. The kaolinite clay
was supplied by English China Clays, Cornwall,
England and had a specic gravity of 262, a liquid
limit of 08, a plastic limit of 039, a plasticity
index of 041 and 95% of material with particle
sizes below 2 m. The naturally occurring glacial
gravel was obtained from Scotsand, Brodick, Isle
of Arran, Scotland. It was retained on a 2 mm
sieve, passed a 335 mm sieve and had an essentially uniform grading between these sizes; the
specic gravity was 265, water absorption 052%,
maximum void ratio 099 and minimum void ratio
058; the particles were subangular to subrounded
and consisted of 80% broken granite grains, 10%
quartz and 10% other minerals such as red feldspar
and jasper (Kumar, 1996).
Mixtures of kaolinite and gravel were prepared
in the air-dry condition and then mixed with
deionized water to the selected water content and
cured for 24 h to allow complete water penetration
before testing. The procedure for the fall cone tests
was as described in BS1377 (British Standards
Institution, 1991) except that the coarse particles
were not removed. Water contents were chosen to
give penetrations between 15 and 25 mm for a
cone of mass 80 g with tip angle of 308. Several
repetitions were performed in order to check the
reproducibility of the results.
Compression tests
Two sets of compression tests were performed:
in a hydraulic oedometer (Rowe cell) (Rowe &
Barden, 1966) of nominal diameter 75 mm, up to
vertical effective stresses of 480 kPa, and in a
consolidation tube using dead-weight loading in
order to apply higher stresses up to about
1600 kPa. The consolidation tube was machined
out of aluminium alloy, with internal diameter
38 mm, wall thickness 12 mm and height 235 mm,
to t exactly around the bottom pedestal and top

cap of a standard triaxial cell (Kumar, 1996). All

tests were performed in a climatically controlled
laboratory with the temperature held constant at
208C.
The kaolin was rst mixed on its own under
vacuum at a water content of about 120%. The
chosen amount of gravel was added and mixing
continued for an hour under vacuum. The mixture
was then kept in an airtight container for 1 week
in order to ensure complete saturation and wetting
of the granular particles.
This mixture was spooned into the Rowe cell in
small amounts and the cell was then assembled,
with care taken at all stages to avoid trapping of
air. The assembled apparatus was placed under
vacuum as a nal deairing measure. The clay was
loaded by applying pressure increments to the
hydraulic membrane while maintaining the drainage connections under back pressure using GDS
pressure controllers (Menzies, 1988) both to maintain the pressure and to record the volumes of
water passing into and out of the sample. Consolidation stages were alternated with stages of permeability testing. Some of these permeability
measurements have been reported by Kumar &
Muir Wood (1996). Consolidation was allowed to
occur over a period of 24 h under each load
increment. At the end of the test, samples were
taken for water content determination and also to
measure the uniformity of the proportion of ne
gravel in the sample. The maximum variation in
gravel content or water content through the sample
was found to be about 05%. The nal water
content was used to calculate the water content and
void ratio at earlier stages of the consolidation.
For consolidation in the loading tube, a triaxial
loading frame and triaxial cell were used, the cell
being required simply to maintain the alignment of
the loading ram since no cell pressure was used
and the load was applied using dead weights. The
inside of the tube was smeared with silicone grease
to minimize side friction. The claygravel slurry
was spooned into the tube in three layers of
60 mm. After the placement of each layer the tube
was held under vacuum for 1 h in order to improve
the deairing. Once the tube was full, drainage
through porous plastic discs was permitted at both
the top and the bottom of the tube. Time intervals
of about 24 h were left between each load increment to allow complete consolidation. The average
water content of the sample at the end of the test
was used to determine the water content and void
ratio at earlier stages. Samples were taken through
the depth of the nal sample to discover the
uniformity of water content and of gravel content:
typical variations are shown in Fig. 1. The variation of gravel content was not usually greater than
about 0708% and the variation of water content
not usually greater than 0508%.

729

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

Clay content: %

Depth: mm

20
0

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Nominal
clay
content %

20

90

40

80
70

60

60

80

50

100

40

120

30

140
(a)

Depth: mm

15
0

20

Water content: %
25
30

35

40

Nominal
clay
content %

20

90

40

80
70

60

60

80

50

100

40

120

30

140
(b)

Fig. 1. Variation with depth of (a) gravel content and (b) water
content at end of tests in consolidation tube
VOLUMETRIC VARIABLES

As will be shown in the analysis of the results,

the interpretation becomes clearer if the inuences
of the clay matrix and the granular particles are
somehow separated. This separation appears to be
particularly important in describing volumetric effects: for dilute mixtures, where the separation of
the granular particles is on average large, the
mechanical behaviour is dominated by the clay
constituent. For dense mixtures, the separation of
granular particles is small and interaction between
these particles can occur.
The mixtures were prepared by weighing out
quantities of dry kaolin clay powder and ne
gravel. The clay content C is then formally
mc
C
(1)
mc mg
where mc and mg are the masses of clay powder
and gravel, respectively. However, since the specic
gravities of the clay mineral (kaolinite) and the
gravel minerals (quartz and feldspars) are very
similar, the clay content can also be dened
approximately in terms of volume fractions:
C

Vc
V c Vg

(2)

where Vc and Vg are the volumes of clay mineral

and granular material in the mixture (Fig. 2).
The mixtures are assumed to be saturated so
that the voids can be assumed to be lled with
water occupying a volume Vw (Fig. 2). The conventional denition of the void ratio e is then
e

Vw
Vc Vg

(3)

Masses

mw

Volume

Water

Vw
V

mc

Clay

Vc

mg

Gravel

Vg

Fig. 2. Constituent volumes and masses of gravel, clay

and water

730

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

and specic volume v is

Vw Vc V g
v1e
V c Vg

and the granular volume fraction f g :

(4)

fg

Vg
1C
1

v
vg
Vw V c V g

(10)

The water content w is dened in the usual way as

mw
e
w

(5)
mc mg Gs

These relate to the ne gravel particles, treating

the clay and water together as void occupiers.

where Gs is the specic gravity of the mineral

component.
However, it was found that the clay matrix and
the granular particles appear to behave quite separately under certain circumstances and it is useful
to be able to characterize their individual packings.
We can dene the clay void ratio ec :
Vw
e
(6)
ec

C
Vc

FALL CONE RESULTS

the clay specic volume vc :

Vw Vc e C

C
Vc



1 C 1 fg

C
fg

vc

(7)

(where the granular volume fraction f g is dened

below) and clay water content wc :
mw w
(8)
wc

C
mc
These all relate to the clay matrix. Correspondingly, we can dene the granular specic volume
vg :
V w Vc Vg
v

1C
Vg

(9)

90
Clay
content: %

80
Water content: %

vg

The relationship between fall cone penetration

and water content for each of the mixtures is
shown in Fig. 3. There is an approximately linear
relationship between the water content and the
logarithm of the cone penetration. The simplest
way of interpreting these results is to estimate the
water content of each mixture for which the cone
penetration would be exactly 20 mm: this is, by
denition, the liquid limit of the mixture. For the
pure clay the liquid limit wL is about 80%. As the
clay content reduces the liquid limit falls (Fig.
4(a)), but it falls more or less linearly with clay
content. For each mixture it is a convenient shorthand to dene an `apparent' liquid limit for the
clay matrix alone, wLc , using equation (8) to convert water content into clay water content (Fig.
4(b)): it is found that this apparent liquid limit for
the clay matrix is more or less unchanged until the
clay content falls below about 30%. While this can
be seen as conrming the ndings of Seed et al.
(1964), presenting the results in terms of clay
water content does more clearly emphasize that it
is the clay matrix alone which is controlling the
penetration of the cone: the gravel particles take
up space but do not affect the mechanical behaviour of the mixture. (A broadly similar result has
been obtained in fall cone tests on mixtures of
kaolin with ner sands (Chau & Needham, 1998).)

70

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30

60
50
40
30
20
10

15

20
Cone penetration: mm

25

30

Fig. 3. Fall cone penetrometer tests: variation of cone penetration with

water content

731

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

90
80
Liquid limit: %

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

0.2

0.4
0.6
Clay content

0.8

0.8

Apparent liquid limit of clay matrix: %

(a)
110

100

90

80

70
0

0.2

0.4
0.6
Clay content
(b)

Fig. 4. Fall cone penetrometer tests: (a) liquid limit as function of

clay content; (b) apparent liquid limit of clay matrix as function of
clay content

It has been shown (Wood, 1985; Wroth & Wood,

1978) that the fall cone is a strength-measuring
device and that by using a specied fall cone
procedure and penetration to determine the liquid
limit of soils one is actually dening the liquid
limit as a certain undrained strengthwhich turns
out to be around 17 kPa (Wood, 1985). So long as
the gravel particles are sufciently far apart not to
interact with each other then it is the undrained
strength of the clay that controls the cone penetration. Dimensional analysis shows that a cone of
mass m will penetrate into a clay of undrained
strength cu a distance d given by
s
k mg
d
(11)
cu
where g is the acceleration due to gravity and k is
a constant, which depends on the angle of the cone
and is found to be about 0:85 for 308 cones (Wood,
1985). The results in Fig. 3 can thus be converted
into relationships between the water content and
undrained strength of the mixtures (Fig. 5(a)). It is
particularly striking to present the results as a

semilogarithmic plot of clay water content (equation

(8)) against undrained strength (Fig. 5(b)), which
shows very clearly that the undrained strength of
the mixture, as perceived by the falling cone, is
entirely controlled by the water content of the clay
matrix until the clay content falls to 30%. It is
striking too that, even though at a clay content of
40% the gravel particles occupy about a third of the
volume of the mixture (for a clay water content of
about 08) and even though it must be expected that
the penetrating cone makes contact with one or
more gravel particles as it penetrates the mixture, it
seems that the presence of the gravel particles has
no mechanical inuence on the process of penetration. It seems that the clay matrix is sufciently
weak that any particles that are struck are moved
effortlessly out of the path of the cone.
Ideas of critical-state soil mechanics (Muir
Wood, 1990; Wroth & Wood, 1978) suggest that
the slope of this relationship should be related to
the compressibility :
wc B

ln cu
Gs

(12)

732

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

90

Water content: %

80

Clay content: %
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30

70
60
50
40
30
20
1

10
Undrained shear strength: kPa
(a)

110
Clay matrix water content: %

Clay content: %
100

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
Best fit

90

80

70

60
1

10
Undrained shear strength: kPa
(b)

Fig. 5. Fall cone penetrometer tests: deduced relationships between

undrained shear strength and (a) water content and (b) clay water content

where B is a constant for a particular soil. The

value of is found to be about 0224 from the
best-t line to all the data for clay contents of 40%
and above, with a single value of B. In fact the
slope is virtually identical for a clay content of
30%; only the value of B is signicantly greater.
It is of course not possible to measure the
plastic limit of the gravelclay mixtures using the
standard procedure of rolling out a thread of soil
of diameter 3 mm. However, the plastic limit of the
clay on its own is about 39% (the result of a
number of repeated tests) so that the plasticity
index of the clay is I P 0:41. Following the
suggestion of Schoeld & Wroth (1968) (see also
Wroth & Wood, 1978; Muir Wood, 1990) that the
ratio between the value of any stress-dependent
quantity (such as undrained strength or vertical

effective stress) for a soil with a water content

equal to the plastic limit and the value for the
liquid limit might be about 100, it can be deduced
that the compressibility is related to the plasticity
index by

I P Gs
ln 100

(13)

From the present measurements this implies a

value of 0:236, which is close to the value
deduced from the strength variation in the fall cone
tests. The value of 100 seems to give a good
general match to the available data on the compressibility of many clays, even though for some
soilssuch as the kaolin/ne sand mixtures tested
by Dumbleton & West (1966)the ratio appears to
be much lower.

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

OEDOMETER RESULTS

The results of the set of compression tests on

the claygravel mixtures performed in the Rowe
cell is shown in Fig. 6(a) in terms of specic
volume and vertical effective stress (plotted on a
logarithmic scale). The data from the Rowe cell
and the consolidation tube are broadly consistent,

with minor differences at low stresses. A pattern of

behaviour is evident, with reducing specic volumes and reducing compressibility as the clay
content falls. In addition, it is evident that the
relationship is slightly concave upwards for the
higher clay contents and slightly concave downwards for the lower clay contents. This changing

Specific volume

4
Clay content: %
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10

1
10

100
Vertical effective stress: kPa

1000

(a)

Clay specific volume

Clay content: %
10
5

4
20
3

SCL
30
40100

2
10

100

1000

10000

Vertical effective stress: kPa

(b)

Granular volume fraction

0.7

Clay content: %

0.6

90

0.5

70

80
60

0.4

50

0.3

40

0.2

20

30
10
f 50.4
f 50.5

0.1
0
10

733

100
1000
Vertical effective stress: kPa

10000

(c)

Fig. 6. Oedometer tests: (a) specic volume and vertical effective

stress; (b) clay specic volume and vertical effective stress; (c) granular
volume fraction and vertical effective stress

734

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

slope can be characterized by quoting values of

compressibility at low stress levels (1 for
9v , 120 kPa) and higher stress levels (2 for
9v . 120 kPa) (Fig. 7), where is dened by
9v

v
9v

(14)

The pattern is claried when the results are presented in terms of clay specic volume (equation
(7)) (Fig. 6(b)) and it then becomes clear that,
broadly, the behaviour is independent of clay content for clay contents above 30%although the
independence of clay content is more convincing
for stresses greater than about 60 kPa. The corresponding compressibilities, now labelled c1 and
c2 , are also shown in Fig. 7: c1 falls with decreasing clay content whereas c2 is essentially
constant for clay contents above 30%. It might be
suggested that the water contents at which the
mixtures were prepared should have been increased
as the clay content fell but the study using the fall
cone demonstrated by mixing the clay matrix on
its own initially at a single water content (equal to
15 times the liquid limit), that, since the liquid
limit varies linearly with clay content, the initial
water content of each mixture was in fact 15 times
the liquid limit of that mixture.
Although steps were taken to lubricate the inside
surface of the oedometers there may have been
some side friction: the actual vertical effective
stress experienced by the clay may have been
somewhat lower than that estimated from the ex-

ternally applied stresses. The correspondence between the results from the Rowe cell and from the
consolidation tube tends to suggest that this may
not be a large effect. A frictional loss proportional
to the lateral stress (and hence presumably to the
vertical stress) would tend to produce a rightward
shift of the compression relationship in the semilogarithmic plot. The initial height of the samples,
prepared with a common clay water content, falls
as the clay content reduces so that the error in
vertical stress in the low-stress regime might be
expected to decrease as the clay content fallsand
this could account for the reduction of c1 with
clay content.
The value of c2 is roughly constant at about
0221 which is essentially identical to the values
deduced from the strength data of the fall cone
tests and from the plasticity of the clay on its own.
Data from the unloading stages of the compression tests performed in the Rowe cell are gathered
together in Fig. 8. The changes in specic volume
from the start of unloading are shown: the observed volume changes are remarkably insensitive
to clay content even for clay contents down to
10%. Testing of these low-clay-content mixtures
using the same procedures as for the more clayrich materials is not easy but the results show no
obvious trend of changing response with falling
clay content. It is perhaps reasonable to expect
that, whereas during loading the hard gravel particles eventually start to interact, during unloading it
is the clay matrix which controls the response as

0.6

0.5

Compressibilities

c1
0.4

0.3

c2

0.2
2

0.1

0
0

20

40
60
Clay content: %

80

100

Fig. 7. Compressibilities of clay and clay matrix during loading and

unloading deduced from oedometer tests on mixtures (open
symbols: data from Rowe cell; solid symbols: data from consolidation tube; solid lines: compressibilities of clay; dotted lines:
compressibilities of clay matrix)

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

735

Clay content %

0.2
Change in specific volume

100
90
80
70
60

0.1

50
40
30
20
10

0
10

100

1000

Vertical effective stress: kPa

Fig. 8. Oedometer tests: clay specic volume and vertical effective

stress for unloading: change of volume shown from start of
unloading

the gravel particles start to move apart again. The

average slopes k and kc of these relationships in
the semilogarithmic plots, for the clay and clay
matrix, respectively, are included in Fig. 7.
Working from 100% clay content towards lower
values, it is natural to seek patterns of response in
the volumetric packing of the clay matrix. At the
lower clay contents it is evident that the gravel
particles are in some way interacting with each
other and it is appropriate to look at the volumetric
packing of the gravel particles themselves. The
compression data are shown in Fig. 6(c) in terms
of the granular volume fraction f g and the vertical
effective stress. The effect of granular volume fraction is discussed in detail in a later section.
DISCUSSION

Intrinsic compression and sedimentation

compression lines
The use of the compressibility presupposes
that it is useful to consider linear relationships
between the specic volume and the logarithm of
the vertical effective stress. For many natural
claysand indeed for the claygravel mixtures
considered herethe relationship is clearly not
linear when seen over a signicant range of stresses. The intrinsic compression line (ICL) introduced by Burland (1990) recognizes this curvature
and proposes a general expression for the onedimensional compression relationship for a fully
remoulded soil in terms of a void index I v , which,
in slightly modied form, can be written
Iv

v v100
ln 10

2:45 0:558 ln 9v 0:00123(ln 9v )3 (15)

where is the compressibility between vertical

effective stresses of 100 and 1000 kPa (so that

ln 10 is the change in specic volume between
these two stresses) and v100 is the specic volume
at a vertical effective stress of 100 kPa. This
relationship is concave upwards for vertical effective stresses above 1 kPa (and becomes horizontal
at a stress of about 220 MPabut this is beyond
its range of intended applicability). Burland suggests correlations for and v100 with the specic
volume at the liquid limit, vL :
0:256 vL 0:296
(16)

ln 10
and
v100 0:325 0:905 vL 0:137 v2L 0:016 v3L
(17)
The measured liquid limit of the clay is about 08,
implying vL 3:12. From equation (16),
0:218, which is very consistent with the measured
value of c2 . From equation (17), v100 2:301; this
value is too low by comparison with the experimental results from the present study and needs to
be increased by about 036 in order that the
relationship between specic volume and vertical
effective stress from equation (15) should match
the results for vertical stresses above 60 kPa.
Looking closely at the data gathered by Burland,
it is clear that the overall spread of the band
relating v100 and vL is of the order of 04 and that
equation (17) lies towards the lower bound of the
data. It is also signicant that he notes two expected exceptions to the simple correlation which
he proposes for remoulded soils: (a) for soils
which plot below the A-line in the plasticity chart
linking the plasticity index I P and the liquid limit
wL , and (b) for soils compressed from slurries (for
example, those reported by Nakase et al. (1988))

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

he proposes that his correlations are appropriate

for soils reconstituted at water contents between
wL and 1:5wL . In each case the data for these
`exceptional' soils lie above the relationship described by equation (17). The kaolin tested here
plots just below the A-line in the plasticity chart;
and the mixtures tested here have not been remoulded but have been consolidated from a slurry,
albeit a slurry prepared at a water content equal to
15 times the liquid limit. Nakase et al. (1988) do
not state the water content at which their slurries
were prepared but describe the clay being `puddled
in a clay mixer', which sounds very similar to the
procedure adopted in the present tests. The present
mixtures might therefore be expected to be on the
edge of being `exceptional' soils and to lie more or
less at the upper bound of the spread of the band
of data of v100 and vL presented by Burland.
Burland goes on to present data on in situ water
contents and vertical effective stresses of natural
clays and shows that these lie on a `sedimentation
compression line' (SCL) typically about 0:8 ln 10
above the intrinsic compression line. For our soils
this is about 04. The sedimentation compression
line is plotted in Fig. 6(b) (using the numerical
values given by Burland) and matches the data for
stresses above 60 kPa extremely well. However, it
somewhat underestimates the specic volumes at
lower vertical stresses. It might be concluded from
this that soils consolidated from slurry, even a
slurry with a water content of 15 times the liquid
limit, will show compression lines which match the
compression of naturally sedimented soils but,
equally, that the sample preparation procedure affects the volumetric packing for stresses below
about 60 kPa.

Normalization with liquid limit

The possibility of normalizing strength and
compression data from different clays by expressing the water contents in terms of the liquidity
index I L ,
w wP
(18)
IL
IP
was explored by Wroth & Wood (1978) and Muir
Wood (1990). Information about the plastic limit
and plasticity of the claygravel mixtures is not
available. However, it has already been shown that
the liquid limit of the mixtures is directly proportional to clay content:
wL CwLc

(19)

The concept of activity was introduced by

Skempton (1953) to show a connection between
plasticity and clay content for soils of a common
mineralogy. The activity A is dened by

Ip
C

(20)

so that the plasticity index (and hence, from equation (19), the plastic limit) is expected to change
linearly with clay content. Then equation (18) can
be rearranged to give
w CwLc CA
CA
wc wLc

1
A
A

IL

(21)

so that any relationship that has been established

involving clay water content (or any equivalent
clay volumetric variable) will be changed only by
a scaling factor from a similar relationship with
the liquidity index: separate investigation of the
dependence on the liquidity index is therefore
redundant provided the clay matrix liquid limit wLc
is constant, which has been demonstrated for clay
contents greater than 30%.
The presentation of sedimentation compression
data for natural clays by Skempton (1970) in terms
of liquidity index implies that for any clay with a
water content equal to its liquid limit the vertical
effective stress will lie within a narrow range.
Skempton's data imply that this range is about 10
30 kPa. Muir Wood (1990), arguing within a framework of critical-state soil mechanics, together
with some very rough assumptions about soil behaviour, suggests that the vertical effective stress for
any soil at a water content equal to its liquid limit
might be of the order of 8 kPa (about four times
the undrained strength at the liquid limit).
By contrast with this very rough suggestion of
a unique vertical effective stress for all soils at
water contents equal to their liquid limits, Burland's (1990) correlations (equations (15)(17))
imply a variation of the vertical effective stress on
the intrinsic compression line (and the sedimentation compression line) at water contents equal to
the liquid limit with the value of the liquid limit
Vertical effective stress: kPa

736

45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0.3

SCL
ICL
0.4

0.5

0.6
0.7
Liquid limit

0.8

0.9

Fig. 9. Vertical effective stresses at water content equal

to liquid limit (h data from Rowe cell; j data from
consolidation tube)

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

itself: this variation is shown in Fig. 9. Equations

(15)(17) indicate that the vertical stress rises
from about 4 kPa to about 10 kPa on the ICL and
from about 16 kPa to about 42 kPa on the SCL as
the liquid limit falls from 1 to 03. The data from
the present Rowe cell and consolidation tube tests
are also plotted in Fig. 9 for clay contents of 40%
and above, for which, as shown, the liquid limit is
proportional to the clay content. For these tests
the vertical effective stress at a water content
equal to the liquid limit falls from about 35 kPa
to about 25 kPa as the liquid limit of the mixture
falls from 08 (100% clay) to 032 (40% clay), so
that the ratio of vertical effective stress to undrained strength seems to be of the order of 15.
This number is somewhat different from the value
of 4 proposed by Muir Wood (1990); and the
range of values of vertical effective stresses seems
to differ from that predicted from Burland's correlations.
Granular volume fraction
If it is asserted from the evidence in Figs 5 and
6(b) that for clay contents of 40% and above the
presence of the gravel has no effect on the mechanical behaviour of the matrix (either cone penetration or one-dimensional compression) then the
critical value of the granular volume fraction has
to be at least 04: this value is indicated in Fig.
6(c). On the other hand, the compressibility of the
mixture with 30% clay is the same as that of the
other mixtures at higher stresses (compare the
value of c2 in Fig. 7) so perhaps this boundary
value of volume fraction is too low. However, the
compression of the mixtures with clay contents of
10% and 20% is certainly affected by the presence
of the gravel: the critical volume fraction cannot
be greater than 05 (Fig. 6(c)), corresponding to a
granular specic volume of 2. The mixture with a
clay content of 30% has a granular volume fraction
of about 04 at its liquid limit: the cone penetration
tests show that the compressibility of this mixture
(deduced from the slope of the shear strength
water content relationship, Fig. 5(b)) is still governed by the clay matrix even though the magnitude of the strength is clearly inuenced by the
presence of the gravel particles.
Seed et al. (1964) in their assessment of the
Atterberg limits of mixtures of clay and ne sand
arbitrarily assumed that a granular volume packing
equal to the loosest packing of the granular material in the absence of the clay would mark the
boundary of the control of the liquid limit by the
clay fraction alone. They proposed a typical granular specic volume vg of 18 as an approximate
boundary, corresponding to a granular volume fraction of 055. It is clear that for many granular
materials the maximum specic volume determined

737

by standard procedures (Kolbuszewski, 1948) is

much greater than 18. It is also likely that the
granular particles in a clay mixture will start to
interact when they have a packing which is looser
than the packing which the minimum-density test
will produce. In a truly random mixture of clay
with granular material, the shape of the granular
particles would be expected to have a second-order
inuence on their interaction unless the departure
from sphericity were extreme. Subject to this restriction, the angularity of particles of a given size
would also not be expected to have much inuence. The inuence of the granular particles is
presumably controlled by the ease with which the
soft clay matrix can squeeze unimpeded between
and around the hard particles.
Fukue et al. (1986) reported the results of consolidation tests on compacted mixtures of bentonite
with Toyoura sand (grain size between 007 and
04 mm). They detected a slight attening of the
relationship between specic volume and logarithm
of vertical stress at higher stresses, which they
ascribe to the onset of interaction of sand particles,
and quote corresponding threshold values of granular specic volume falling from 248 to 225 (granular volume fractions increasing from 040 to 044)
as the clay content of the mixtures falls from 034
to 020. These gures, which come from direct
experimental observation, match closely with the
range deduced from the present study. It may be
noted that the maximum and minimum specic
volumes of the Toyoura sand, determined by the
standard procedures, are 198 and 158 (volume
fractions 050 and 063), whereas the ne gravel
used in the present tests has corresponding values
of 199 and 158 (volume fractions 050 and 063).
The densest arrays of spherical particles are the
face-centred cubic and close-packed hexagonal
structures. For each of these, the volume fraction
for spherical particles of a single diameter d with
spacing s is given by:
 3

d
fg p
(22)
3 2 s
This has a maximum value of 074 when s d
and varies with s=d as shown in Fig. 10. If threshold values of f g equal to 04 and 05 are inserted
in equation (22) the critical spacings that emerge
are 123 and 114 times the particle diameter. The
subangular to subrounded particles of gravel in the
present study are of course not spherical but it is
perhaps, nevertheless, surprising that the particles
have on average to be as close as this before any
detectable mechanical interaction occurs.
It has been seen in Fig. 6 that for vertical
effective stresses greater than about 60 kPa the
relationship between clay specic volume and vertical effective stress is essentially independent of

738

KUMAR AND MUIR WOOD

Volume fraction

0.8

perimentally. At 40% the threshold increases from

about 05 to 20 MPa as f g increases from 04 to
05; at 30% the threshold increases from about 2
to 400 kPa. The experimental observation is that at
40% clay content the gravel plays no role for
stresses up to 16 MPa; at 30% clay content the
gravel is clearly playing some role at stresses
above 10 kPa.

0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1.0

1.2

1.4
1.6
Spacing/diameter

1.8

2.0

Fig. 10. Relationship between volume fraction and

particle spacing for regular arrays of spherical
particles

clay content for clay contents greater than 30%.

The relationship has the form
vc A c2 ln 9v

(23)

with A  3:6 and c2  0:213. If it is proposed

that there is a critical value of granular volume
fraction for which interaction of the gravel particles begins to occur, then the vertical effective
stress at which this critical value will be reached
can be estimated for different claygravel mixtures
by combining equation (23) with the denitions of
clay specic volume (equation (7)) and granular
volume fraction (equation (10)):
"
!#
1 C)(1 f g )
1
9v exp
(24)
A
c2
Cf g

Critical vertical effective stress: kPa

The resulting vertical effective stresses are shown

in Fig. 11 as a function of clay content for values
of the volume fraction f g equal to 04 and 05. The
threshold stress falls very rapidly with decreasing
clay content and is essentially zero for clay contents of 20% and below, irrespective of which of
the values of f g is chosen. At clay contents above
50% the threshold is sufciently high to not be of
interest for general engineering purposes, so that it
is in the region of 3040% clay content that the
interaction is identied to occuras observed ex10 000
1000

Threshold volume
fraction
0.5

100
0.4
10
1
20

25

30
35
Clay fraction: %

40

45

Fig. 11. Relationship between critical vertical effective

stress and clay fraction

CONCLUSIONS

The results of two sets of tests on mixtures of

kaolin with ne gravel have been interpreted in
terms of volumetric quantities to demonstrate that
it is the granular volume fraction that eventually
controls the inuence of the gravel on the mechanical behaviour of the mixture. For granular volume fractions below about 045 the behaviour is
determined by the clay matrix: the granular material acts as a volume ller but the individual gravel
particles do not interact.
This result can be linked to three other ndings.

(a) Lupini et al. (1981) studied the residual

friction angles of mixtures of London Clay
and Happisburgh till and found that the
possibility of the formation of failure surfaces
through the soil on which reorientation of clay
particles could occur, leading to low residual
angles of friction, was dependent on the
volumetric packing of the granular material
in the mixture. For granular volume fractions
below about 03 the behaviour was controlled
by the clay and low residual angles were
observed; for granular volume fractions above
about 04 it was no longer possible for
continuous failure surfaces to form through
the clay and the failure mode was described as
`turbulent', involving continuous reworking of
the soil structures.
(b) Winter et al. (1998) studied the inuence of
stone content on the compaction behaviour of
ll material for earthworks. They conclude
that, in the continuously graded materials that
they studied, the compaction behaviour is
controlled by the matrix for stone contents
below 4550%. From the data that they
present this seems to imply a transition of
behaviour for a stone volume fraction of
around 04. It can be expected that in a
continuously graded material the contrast between the responses of the matrix and the
stones will be less marked than in the clay
gravel mixtures that have been described.
Similarly, Holtz & Ellis (1961) showed angles
of friction and values of cohesion for compacted clayey gravels which start to change
when the proportion of gravel rises from 35%
to 50%.

FALL CONE AND COMPRESSION TESTS ON CLAYGRAVEL MIXTURES

(c) Hallworth & Huppert (1998) described gravity

currents in suspensions of single-sized particles in water. A transition in ow regime was
observed for initial volume fractions greater
than about 03: for these the gravity ow
ceases abruptly as the particles settle, move
into mechanical contact and become a sediment. Obviously the volume fraction at which
this sediment is formed is greater than the
volume fraction of the original suspension. For
volume fractions above 045 it is impossible to
create the uniform particle suspensions. It is
this latter gure that may be more relevant to
the present study.
In each caseand in the present studythe
transition of response is rather abrupt. The theoretical reason for the precise numerical values at the
transition is not yet clear. The implied interparticle
spacing at the transition is surprisingly small.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Most of the experimental work described here

was performed while both authors were members
of the Department of Civil Engineering at the
University of Glasgow. The rst author is grateful
to the Association of Commonwealth Universities
for the award of a scholarship enabling him to
study in Glasgow.

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