XIII ICSMFE, 1994, New Delhi. India j XIII CIMSTF, 1994.

New Delhi , lnde

PERMEABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF SOFT CLAYS

CARACTERISTIQUES DE LA PERMEABILITE DES ARGILES MOLLES

G. Mesri1 T.W. Feng 2 S. Atf T.M. Hayat4

1
Professor of CMI Engineering, University of lllinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, lllinois, U,S.A.
2
Associate Profes~or, Chung Yuan University, Taipei, Republic of China ·
3
Geotechnical Engineer, Woodward-Clyde Consultants, ,Wayne, New Jersey, U.S.A.
4
Geotechnical Engineer, National Engineering Services. Lahore, Pakistan

SYNOPSIS: Laboratory falling-head and constant-head flow measurements during IL or CRS oedometer tests, as weU as pore wa ter pressure
measurements during CRS oedometer test, provide reliable information o n permeability of natural soft clay deposits. The simpler falling-head measuretnent
during IL oedometer test, which does not require sophisticated equipment Cor control and accurate measurement of pore water pressure, may be preferred.
However, reliable CRS oedometer test is the most efficient in providing information on compressibility and permeability of soft clays. Effect of pore sizc
and pore shape is included in temlS of activity and clay size fraction in an empirícal permeability-void ratio relationship Cor soft clays, that may be used to
estímate in situ le.... from e 0 to which <; is also related. Soft days of marine origin display ihsignificant permeability anisotropy, and k..;/lc.,,, of lacustrine
clays rarely exceeds S and often is less than 3.

INTRODUcnON measurements, which are generally obtained as a part o{ oedometer

Analysis of water flow in saturated soils is based on the Darcy flow
equation (Darcy, 1856):
v, - - k, i, (1)
.where in the macroscopic or apparent flow direction s ; v, is discharge
velocity, ~ is hydraulic gradient, and le, is permeability. The forrn of the
Darcy equation of motion of fluid has been repeatedly confirmed for
water flow through soft clays ( e .g., Tavenas e t al., 1983a). Mathematical
analyses of f]ow through porous media as well as experimental resu!ts on
clay minerals (Mesri and Olson, 1971), have demonstrated that
permeability is mainly determined by the size of individual pores normal
· to s-direction, shape of pores along s-direction, and total volume of pores
per únit area normal to s-direction. Soil particle size, often dictated by
mineralogy and aggregation or dispersion, determines individual pore size,
particle shape and arrangement determine pare shape, and particle size,
shape and arrangement together determine porosity. In stiff clays and
shales, macropores produced by fissures and j oints exert a majar influence
on permeability (Mesri aild Cepeda-Diaz, 1987).
Most soft clay deposits of marine and lacustrine originare composed of
a mixture of minerals that often include illite and chlorite as weU as
substantiaJ amounts o{ quartz and feldspar, a nd sorne smectite, micas and
carbonates. Furthermore, the fabric of soft clays is often flocculated or
aggregated. It is therefore difficult to define pare size and shape for
natural soft clays in terms of such parameters as specific surface and
tortuosityfactor thatappearin the Kozeny-Cannan permeability equation.
However, total volume of voids is readily defined in terms of void ratio or
porosity. Thus, infonnation on permeability at any void ratio, that may be
required for steady seepage or transient consolidation analyses in soft
clays, is evaluated directly by laboratory or in situ tests.
UBORATORY EVALUATION OF PERMEABrLITY OF SOFr Cl.AYS
Most post-glacial soft clay deposits are sufficiently uniform to justify
laboratory permeability tC3ts '"ing small clay specimens. Thesc
testing. provide information on permeability in vertical and horizontal
directions at in situ void ratio, le,.. and k..,, as weU as on the decreasc in
permeability with a decrease in void ratio in terms of e - log le_. and e -
Iog k• relations or values of <; equal to /J.e/ /J. log k. and /J. e/ /J. log k•.
Successful time-rate of settlement and pore water pressure a nalyses for
full-scale construction projects on soft clay deposits, using pcrmeability
data from laboratory tests, tend to confirm the reliability of lhese
measuremenls (Mesri and Choi, 1985; Mesri and Lo, 1986, 1989; Mesri et
al., 1988; Lo, 1991). This is quite fo rtunale beca use only certain special in
situ permeameters (e.g., self-boring, non-dogsing prohes) a nd testing
procedures, provide reliable information on k..,; and no information on k..,
and <;is readily obtained from the in situ measureme nts (Tavenas et al.,
1986). In fact, for soft clays wit h k..,/ lc,.. - 1, exceUent agreement has been
found between laboratory and reliable in situ permeability test results
(Me.<;ri and Choi, 1987). F or certain varved days, spe.cimens !arger than
those used in standard oedometer tesis may be required for d ete rmining
le,, (Chan and Kenney, 1973; Tavenas et al., 1983a; Lcroueil et al., 1990),
and in one case, seepage analysis of a fuU-scale soh clay ground was
carried out to confirm !aboratory k.., measurements (Kenney and Chan,
1973). Severa! alternatives are available for d etermining coefficient of
permeability during laboratory oedometer tests. These include falling·
head or constant-head permeability tests duri¡ig Incremental loading (IL)
or constant rate of strain (CRS) oedometer tests, calculation of
penneability using the pore wate r pressure measurements during the CRS
test, and calculation of permeability using the Terzaghi time factor
together with the coefficient of consolidation and end-of-primary (EOP)
e - o; determined during the IL oedometer test.
SOFfClAYS
The high qua!ity 20 cm or 25 cm diameter undisturbed soft day samples
u:sed in this investigation were taken with the Lava! or Sherbrook samplers
(La Rochelle et al., 1981; Lefebvre and Poulin, 1979), except the Boston
Blue clay, the 2S cm block samples ofwhich we re hand-carve d from a deep
c:xcavation site in Boston (Ali, 1992). The permeability testing program
induded nine post-glacial soft clays fcom Eastem Canada, onepost-glacial
soft clay from the Eastem Central coast of Sweden, and two clays i'rom th~:
United States. The soft clay samples are identified in Table l.

187
 rate, iP, results in near·zero excess pore water pressure at the bottom of
Table l. Index Pro~rties of Soft Clays
the specirnen, in recompression as well as the compression range. The
i 1 = 10 t, leads to vaJues of u~/o, in the range o f 3 to 15%, allowing
w. WL Wp CF a;º calculation o( le., or k• from the following equation:
Clay
% % % % kPa
a;Jo; 0

Y,, L AL (4)
St. Hilaire 61-84 55 23 77 83 l.4-1.6 k=-- -¡;¡
2 u' 0
St. Esprit 73-92 75 27 76 37 3.0-3.3
St. Alban 1 58-64 43 21 40 33 2.1-3.4
where y., is unit weight of water, u¿ is the measured excess pore water
La Grande 15b 55-59 62 26 53 42 2.8-3.0 pressure at the bottom of specirnen, and 11 L//lt is the imposed axial
La Grande 23a 55-58 64 26 52 83 1.8-2.0 deformation rate. Equation 4 is based o n the Darcy tlow equation,
Boston Blue 27-30 32-36 17 36-44 155 3.3 assÚming a parabolic distribution of excess pore water pressure between
Vasby 1 94-122 121 40 67 28 1.2· l.3 the drainage boundary at the top and the irnpervious boundary at the
Vasby2 9 1-102 JOB 36 67 36 1.2-1.3 bottom of the specimen (Mesri and Feng, 1992). l n a total o f 20 CRS
oedometer tests for which it was possible to compute e· log k using Eq. 4,
Atchafalaya 52-78 82 33 61 100 Ll-1.2 for comparison, direct constant·head penneability tests were also carried
Batiscan 7 1-88 49 ;22 80 45-53 1.6-1.7 out at several void ratios. The CRS oedometer tests, for which reliable
Broadback2 42 28 19 46 55 2.2-2.4 measurement of pore water pressure is of paramount importance for both
Broadback 6 48 36 25 67 2.6-3.2 e - log a; and e - log k evaluation, were carried out ~side a special
Berthierville 57-70 46 24 oedometer (Mesri and Feng, 1992).
36 39 1.4-1.5
Permeability can be computed by analyzing the deformation -time curve of
a n IL oedometer test using a theory of consolidation. The Terzaghi
Theory of consolidation is commonly used and k. is computed from the
TESTING AND INTERPRETATION P ROCEDURES definitions of the coefficient of consolidation and time factor, wh ich

Permeability of the soft clays was determined using 6.35 cm diameter and
1.91 an high oedomcter specimcns. The clay specimen was trirnmed using
a wire saw dírectly into a highly polishcd stainlcss steel confining ring
which was coated inside. with a th in film o f high-vacuum silicon grease.
Thc specirnen was separated from the top a nd bottom porous stones by a
Tctko polyester screen (HD7-6). Ali tests were carried out in a
temperature con trolled environment at near 20º C.
Thc Calling-head permeability measurements were carricd o ut during the
secondary comp ression stage of IL standard oedometer tests, without a
back-pressure. The following equation was used to compute permeability
at a particular void ratio:
k (2)
~~ ~
-~
k, • 0.2 Yw m, (5)
where m,. ,_ l1cv/ ll.o; is the coefficient of compressibility which is
obtained for the particular pressure increment from EOP ~. - o~ H is
maximum drainage distance, and the Terzaghi time factor of 0.2
rorresponds to thc e lapsed time of tjQ required to complete 50% primary
consolidation. The Casagrande method (Casagrande and Fadum, 1940)
was used to define t50 from the d - log t curve. The EOP compression
defined by thc Casagrande method is almosl ide ntical to that defmed by
exccss pore water prcssure measurements (Mesri and Feng. 1992).
TEST RESULTS

Typical constant-head a nd fallíng- head test resulls are shown in Figs. t

where a ( = 0.129 cm2) is the cross-sectional arca of the stan dpipe, A is the
area of the specirnen, L is the height of specimen, h is total head, and t is
elapsed lime. In the falling-head permeability testing program, the
hydraulic gradients were in the range of 3 to 114. In the total of over 150
falling-hcad penneability measurements, log h • t relations were linear
during test durations that ranged from 1000 to 9000 minutes (Feng, 1991;
Hayal, 1992; Ali, 1992).
Constant-head permcability tests were performed after relaxation at
selected void ratios during CRS oedometcr tests as well as during
secondary compression stage of lL tests. Permcability was cdculated
from:
and 2. These as we ll as other measurcments (Feng, 1991), confinn
previous careful investigations of the validity of the form of the D a rcy Oow
equation in soft clays ( e.g., Ta venas et al., l 983a ). In both the IL and CRS
tests, during pe rmcability measurements the (e, o;) point was below the
EOP e • log o: curve. Thus, scepage 'g radients associated with
permeability tests and volume changes ~ssoc iated with secondary
compression had an insignificant effect o n the permeability
measurements. Excellent agreement between constant-head and fallin~'
head permeability tests is illustrated in Fig. 3 by the permeabilit}' ~
measurements on 18 specirnens of Berthierville clay. Figure 3 also shows
the in situ permeability determined al the samplc elevation by var iable
head in situ tests in PERMAC permeameter (Tavenas et al., 1986).

(3)
where hL is the constant head loss through the specirnen and Q is the
quantity offlow measured during elapsed time t. In over 90constant-head
penneability measurements, with values ofhydraulicgradient in the range
of 19 to 84, the Q - t relations were linear for test durations that reached
up to 10,000 minutes (Feng, 1991; Hayal, 1992; Ali, 1992).
An imposed axial strain cate i 1 equal to 10 iP is recornmended for
a;
obtainíng reliable infonnation on both e - log an d e • Jog k., or e • log
k. from CRS oedometer test (Mesri and Feng. 1992). The EOP strain
Excess pore water pressures measured al the bottom of the specimen,
apressed in te rms of ut,/ º• where º• is the total vertical stress, as w~U as
the actual axial strain rates, during the CRS oedomcter tests on Batiscan
clay a re shown in Fig. 4. Test BA-7 which was carr ied out with t 1 = e,,
resulted in near-zero excess pore water pressures which cou\d not be used
to compute le., by Eq. 4. O~ the other hand, the_ ut, measurements, in. the
remaining 3 tests togcther with Eq. 4 resulted U1 the e - log le., relal!ons
that are in excellent agreement with thc direct consta nt-head ~
measuremcnts in Fig. 5. The values of k,. from the CRS e· log le,. at v~1d
ratios where direct permeability tests were carried out are compared w1th
the directly measured k. in Fig. 6. In gene ral, thc agreement is excellcnt
which confirms a prcvious similar conclusion (Larsson, 1986).

188
 4 ratios. For cxample, a significan! preconsolidation pressure effect
devclops whcn large secondary compression takes place undcr a pressure
St. Hilarle Clay
incrcment previous to the one with a small load increment ratio (Mesr~
SH-11
3 1987). Thevalues of k. were computcd using Eq. S and d - log t curves for
~ load-increment ratios within 1/2 to l. Secondary compression under the
o
¡¡: previous pressure increment did not cxceed 25% of the primary
o 2 compression undcr the current increment from which tso was obtaincd .
.?;-
E
ni
..o
a
1.661
1.373
1.200
6J
72
n
The computed values of k,., shown in Fig. 7, are within 1/2 to 1 of the
directly measured lc,.. The largcst discrepancy, for example for
:i Bcrthierville and St. Hilaireclays, is obser:ved for the pressure increments
o
o
1.089
1.010
52
52 spanning the preconsolidation pressurc o;.
Apparcntly, large increase in
o compressibility from therecompression tocompression and the associated
o 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 change in resistance oí clay structure to compression, contribute to the
significant difference between the k, computed using Eq. S and actual
Time, minutes
pcrmcability.

Flg. 1. Constant-hcad pcrmcability tests PERMEABILITY OF SOFI' Cl.AYS

The pore sizc and shape of each soft clay deposit lead to a particlJ]ar
200 rclationship betwecn permeability and void ratio, as is illustrated in Fig. 8.
An attempt has bcen made to include pore size and shapc effccts in tcrms
Vasby2 Clay • ~
VA-7 o 2.811 48 23
E
o 1.924 61 3s .
"a 0.20 10-4
-oni 100
1.360 79 65
Q)
:e ..
o BA-7
BA - 1Z
o BA-13
Batiscan Clay
·ep • 2.3k'10 - 7 s-l
Cii V BA- 14
;§ 0.15 10-5
1.,, ~ .r • ~

o 1000
Time, minutes
2000 3000
b
'-..D
:J
>

0.10
~
"'
cr
-~ 10-6
os
¡;;
...---..
·~-~...,_

~ .,,,..,,.,~
Flg. 2. Falling-head pcnneability tests 0.05 10-1

o ll, FolNng HMd

0.00 e_........_.~.._.,._,,......."' 10- e

o~/}!.i
1.8 10 100 1000 10 100 1000
• CRS, Constan! HeAd
1.6 O In s~u tnll&SlXement º~ o ·•• kPa o'v. kPa
PERMAC. Faling Head • \_:•• s
(Tavenas, et al., 1986) .,
e 1.4 .-Y." . Flg. 4. Pore prcssures and stra in rates in CRS tests
-1:/º • ck = o.74
1.2 7

1.0
o
I r/Jfk'
• ~"º
?" . Berthierville Clay 3.0
'!>.O...!' • CRS Test No. IAoasu<ed le,, Íhp (uO/a..Jm.,.

.
0.8 ~~~~~~~~--~~~~~~
BA-12 e 3.6 0 .02
10- 10 10-9 10-8 2.5 BA- 13 • 29 0 .15
BA- 14 & 8 0.10 .,.-- ·"-
kv, m/s
~~;-'
..,.-. #"
2.0
F!g. 3. k., !rom constant-head and falling-head tests
e
1.5
Previous attempts to compute k., or k, from Eq. S havc not been generally
vcry successful, and computed values of k., as small as 1/10 of the direct!y
mcasurcd values have becn reported (Tavenas et al., 1983b). There are 1.0
fundamental rcasons that may lead to a discrepancy between the Batiscan Clay
oomputed and actual permcability of a clay. These includc changes in
rompressibility and penneability of clay during a pressure increment, as 0.5
wcll as the resistaoce of clay structure to compression. These are not 10- 10
taken into account in the Terzaghi consolidation theory. However, these
factors can be minirnized by excluding recompression-oompression cffect
kv. m/s
during a pressurc increrncnt such as whcn thc prcconsolidation pressurc
o; is spanned, and by avoidingvcry small or very large pressure incrcment Flg. 5. le.. from Eq. 4 and constant-head tests

189
 l
I 10-e fabric which is most common in soft clays minimizes thc effect of mineral
/ CRS Oedometer Tests
composition on the size, shape and total volumc of pores.

CHANGE OF PERMEABILl'IY INDEX

ll is quite unfortunate that in an e • log .k. relationship, the independent

C!ays
o Baüscan
Betthierville
a St. Hilarie
"O Vast ~·
o 8oston Blue
10-11 IL__,_.........,.........~~-'-.._...............w.~..__.....:.....................
10-s
10 - 11 10-10
Measured kv , m/s
Flg. 6. k. from CRS u~ compared to dircct measurements
of clay size fractio n, CF = % < 2µm and actívity, A. = Ip/CF, in ~he
relationship between permeability and void ratio. The resultmg empmcal
relationship, which is shown on Fig. 9, may be used to estimate e· log k,,
for any soft day with a particular set of CF ~nd .1i>· as was propase? ~y
Tavenas etal. (1983b). The rdationshipon F1g. 9 1s also used t~ obtain Ul
situ permeability of soft clay deposits in terms of Ac ~n~ e 0 /Cf 1~ F1g. 10.
Permeability is a function of activity because !alter md1cates mlfleralogy
which determines particle size and thus pore si;ie. Permeability is .dir~tly
related to e, but it is inversely related to CF, h1gh values ofwh1ch Uld1cate
small and ;ortuous pores. Data points in Fig. 10 show that proposed
empirical relationship provides an adequate estima te of k, 0 of soft clays in
terms of A. and e0 / CF. The values of in situ perm~bi~ty of soft clays are
near 1 x 10·• m/s. In fact, the values of k,,0 for a ma1onty of soft clays fall
within the narrow range of 5 x 10·10 m/s to 5 x 10• m/s for a number of
reasons. As thc clay mineral a mi organic content dccrease, oras the soft
clays become more and more silty, under natural sedimentation-
consolidation conditions they come to equilibrium at sm.aller and smaller
void ratios. Thus, the com bination of lar ge void ratios but small void sízes
in the high plasticity clays, is balanced by the smaller void ratios but larger
void sizes in the silty clays. Furthermore , the flocculated or aggregated
,,
e "' •...:Offlpi'.SSK>n
otCompt•Sioo
10-9 • ~G'p /
variable e is expressed in terms of the dependcnt variable .k., thus resulting
in the so-ca1led 'changc of pcrmeability index', e; = Ac/ 6. log k. ·For a
give n change in void ratio, l.arge values of e; iniply small changes in
penneability whcreas the small values of e; correspond to large changcs
in k. For example, very small values of e; torrespond to fISSUred stiffclays
and shales for which the closing of the fissures in the recompression range
lead to a large decrease in penneability for small decreases in void. ratio
(Mcsri and Cepeda-Diaz, 1987). The shape of e - log k acccirdmg to
permeability equations such as the Kozeny-Cannan, as well as
.measurcments on so!t clays, is such that in general e; gradually decrcases
with vertical compression. Howevcr, the initíal portion from (e.,. k,.. ar
10- e k11o) up to about 20% vertical strain can be represented by a constant value
of e;. These values of e; have been previously correlated to the
compression i.ndex c... Ae/ A log o~ just bcyond the prCC?nsolidation
pressure, and typical values of CJCc in the range of 1/2 to 2 have been
reportee! (Mesri and Rokhsar, 1974). Choi (1982) rcportcd an inaea.se in
e; from 0.2 to 10 with the plasticity index increasing from 10 to 1000%.
Far natural soft clays, an cmpirical correlation for e; exists with the in si tu
void ratio c 0 (Tavenas e t al., 1983b). This is illustrated in Fig. 11 together
with the data from the present study. The direct correlation between C.. ..· :
and e 0 implies that far a given dccrease in void ratio, clay compositio~s~~)
which have stabilized al small void ratios expericnce a large r decrease Ul , . ~
permeability than those clays which have high in situ void ratios. An
explanation far this behavior is that for typical foundation and
embankment loads, the compressio n of the latter clays prirnarily involves
particle rearrangement, whereas that of the former cl~ys, ínclud.es ~
addition the breakdown of clay flocs and aggregates. This explanallon IS
also consistent. with the d ecrease i.n e; with vertical compression of soft
clays. The empirical relationship e; = (0.5) e0 is applicable only to soft
clays and silts (Mesri and Cepeda-Diaz, 1987).
PERMEABILl1Y ANlSOTROPY IN son CLAY DEPOSlTS
A oumber of independent factors can lead to permeability anisotropy in
soft clay deposits. Onc fac tor is inherent clay fabric aniso tropy which is
related to the possiblepredominant horizontal orientation of plate·shaped
oc elongated clay mineral particlcs. However, mosl soft clay deposits of
m arine origin consist of a more a r less homogcneous mixture of clay
mine rals which are flocculated or aggregated and space lattice minerals,
leading to an overall random fabric. Thus, in soft clays of marine origin,
k11o/k... rarcly cxceeds 1.5 and often is near 1.0 (Ladd, 1976; Leroueil et al.,

3.5
Oays
10- 10 3 .0 o Batiocan

""o B"'1hierville
Sl Hílaire
:o 2 .5 V Vasby 1

s
a. 2.0
•
o
llasby2
Bostan Ellue
E e
8
~> o
St.Hilllri•Clay
In 19COll'lpf••ion / 1.5
OI c;ompt•91Qn /
'-'
·~nnlngo'p //
;,¡;, 1.0

10 -10
,
•
~\..~ ~
.
\.~,... •• c•. .1.
.. 0 .5

~
o.o L---l__J~..........1..l.J..l.----'--'L....1..............LI..>..1.-.-1.......J'---L..LL.U..U

10-11 10-10 10-9 10- 8

10 -11
10 -10
10 -9 ,
0 -a 10 -11 10 - 10 10 - 9 10 -e
k,, • m/s
kv (measured), m/s

Flg. 7. le,, from IL e,. compared to direct measure ments Fig. 8. e - log k,. of soít clays

190
 CONCLUSIONS
Oays
• Ba1iscan Laboratory permeability measurements ducing oedometer te3t, u wc11 a.s
• (le<1h;eMIJe permeability ca.lculatJons from pore water pressure measurements during
• St. Hilaire
CRS oedometer tests provide reliable infonnation on penneability
• Vasby
• Boston 6'ue characteristics of soft clay deposits. The advantage of IL oedometer test
together with falling-head permeability measurernents during secondary
c:ompression, is that it does not require sophisticated equipment and
oontrols. However, reliable CRS oedometer-1est is rnost efficient in
producing infonnation on both the compressibility and permeability of soft
1.0 clays. Important effects of pore size and shape on the penneability-void
ratio relationship of soft days are included in tem!S of activity A. and clay
0.5 .___._.._.~ ................-~_.__.._~-...µ'-~-............................ size fraction CF. The resulting ernpiricaJ equation provides good estímate
10-11 10-10 10-9
of le,,. in terms of A. , CF and e0 • However, <; of soft clays is practically
kv. mis independent of A. and CF and is directly related to e0 • The valuea of
~/le,., for soft clay deposits of marine origin are generally near one. For
lacustrine varved clays, the values of k..,/ k,.., are often less than 3, and
Fig. 9. e - log le,, in terms of Ac and CF rarely exceed S and reach values as lúgh as 10.

2.0

o Tavenas, et al., 1983b

• Present Study
o o
o
1.5 o
•
o

"'º •
ci.,..
7$t.['11P1it
..
0.13 1.0
• $.. HiW'• 0.42

........
9 V.sby1 1ZZ
'º Vntiyz
11 LO, iSb

10- 10
t2 l0, 23a
13 Sl Albal'I 1 ....
0 .l'l

0.5
o 2 4 6 8
e,./CF

Flg. 10. k.. - e 0 /CF relationships for different A. o.o

o.o 1.0 2.0 3 .0 4.0
Vold Rallo, e0
1990). The second source of possible permeability anisotropy is the
varved nature of lacustrine soft clay dcposits (Chan and Kenney, 1973; Fig. 11. C. - e of soft clays
0

Kenney and Chan, 1973; Kenney, 1963, 1976). However, even in varved
clay deposits, k...,/k.,.,, rarely exceeds 5 and often it is less than 3. This has
been convincingly explained by Kenney (1963, 1976) in terms of the
gradual as opposed to abrupt gradation and permeability variation in the
vertical direction within the varves. Leroueil et al. ( 1990) report that for
varved clays C\ of e - log k, is larger than C. of e· log k.. In other words, 10- e o
•
penneability anisotropy increase.~ with vertical compres.~ion. The
proposed reason is that compression which has a significant effect on ()

perrneability of the clay varve that controls le,,, <loes not have as much o
influence on perrneability of the silt varve that mainly determines k,.
Existing .data on k...,/k.. from the literaturc (e.g., Tavenas et al., 1983b;
Leroueil et al., 1990) together with data from the present study including
values back-calculated from a comparison of observed and computed
l -o
.e 10- 9
settlements and pore water pressurcs under embank.ments on soft clays X o
(Lo, 1991 ), are summatized in Fig. 12. The magnitudes of ~/k.. as large •
o
as 10 apparently correspond to very segregated varved clay deposits (Ladd d> o
and Wissa, 1970). o Measured
• Back calculatod from
The third factor that may lead to k,.,/k,,. greater than one in soft clay settfement anafysls
deposits is stratification by thin, especially horizontally continuous, silt or 10- 10
sand layers and lenses. The continuous pe1vious layers, if are identifíed
during subsurface investigations, can be treated as freely draining 10-10 10-9 10-s
boundaries oras sublayers with high permeability. However, horizontally k..,, m/s
discontinuous inclusions of silt and sand wbich contribute to k~, especially
when vertical drains are used, must be taken into account in terms of an
overall increased value of k...,/k.,.,,. Flg. 12. ki.. of soft clays as compared to le_

191
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The undisturbed samples of soft clays, except Boston Blue clay, were
supplied by G. Lefebvre of Sherbrook University and S. Leroueil of Laval
University. Block samples of lJ<?ston Bluc clay wcrc hand-carvcd from an
excavation sitc with thc assistancc of l-lalcy ami Aldrich of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. This research was carried out as a part of the United
States Nat.ional Science Foundation Grant MSS-8911899. These
eontributions are gratefully acknowledged.
REFERENCES
Ali, S. ( 1992). Engineering properties of undisturbed specimens of Boston
Blue clay. Ph.D. Thesis, University of lllinois at Urbana·
Champaign, 381 p.
Casagrande, A. and Fadum, R.e. (1940). Notes 011' soil testing for
engineering purposes. HarvanJ Soil Mechanics, Series No. 8,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Chan, H.T. and Kenney, T .C. (1973). l.aboratory investigation of
penncability ratio in New Liskeard varved soil. Canadiari Geot. J.
10(3):453-472.
Cho~ Y.K ( 1982). Consolidation behaviorofnaturalclays. Ph.D. Thesis,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 422 p.
Darcy, H.P.G. (1856). Les fontaines publiques de la ville de Dijon.
Dalrnont, Paris.
F eng. T. W. ( 1991 ). Compressibility and penneability ofnatural soft clays,
and surcharging to reduce settlements. Ph.D. Thesis, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 573 p.
Hayat, T.M. (1992). The coefficient of earth pressure at rest. Ph.D.
Thesis, Un.iversity of lliinois at Urbana-Champaign, 664 p.
Kenney, T.C. (1963). Pe nneability ratio of repeated!y !ayered soils.
Geotechnique 13(4):225-333.
Kenney, T.C. (1976). Formation and Geotechnical characteristics of
glacial-lake varved soils. Bjerrum Memorial Volwne, Norwegian
Geotechnical Institute, Oslo, Norway:l5-39.
Kcnney, T.C. and Chan, H.T. (1973). Field investigation ofpenneability
ratio ofNew Llskeard varved soil. Canadian Geot.l. 10(3):473-488.
Ladd, e.e. (1976). Use of preoompression and vertical sand drains for
stabilization of foundation soils. Research Repon R76-4-54J,
Department of Civil Engineering. MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Ladd, e.e.and Wissa,A.E.Z. (1970). Geology and engineeriogpropcrties
of Conoecticut valley varved claya with ¡pecia1 rcfcrence to
embanlcmcnt construction. Raearch &pon R70-J6.26",
Departmcnt ofCivil Enginc:ering, MIT.Cambridge, Ma.wlchusctts.
La Rochelle, P., Serrailh, J., Tavenas, F., Roy, M~ and Leroueil, S. (1981).
Causes of sampling disturbance and design of a new samplcr for
sensitive soils. Canadian Geot. J. 18(1):52-66.
1..an3on, R. (1986). Consolidation of soft clays. Swedish Geotccluúcal
lnstitute, Repon No. 29, 174 p.
Lcfcbvre, G.:and Poul.in, C. (1979). A new method of sampling in
sensitiveclay. Canadian Geot.J. 16(1):226-233.
I..eroueil, S., Bouclin, O ., Tavenas, F., ~gecon, L, and La Rochelle, P.
(1990). Penneability anilouopy of natural daya u a fuoction of
atrain. Canadlan Ge« J. 27(5):568-579.
192
Lo, D.O.K. (1991). Soil improvement by vertical draios. Ph.D. Thesis,
University of lllinois at Urbana-Champaign, 292 p.
Mesri, G . ( 1987). Fourth law o( soil mechanics: a law of compressibility.
Pmc. luteriiational Symp. Cent. E11g. Soft SoiLr, 2, Mcxico City,
Mexico: 179-187.
MesrL G. and Cepeda-Diaz, A.F. ( 1987). Permeability of shales. Proc. 8th
Panamerican Conf SMFE, Cartagena, Columbia:89-100.
Mesr~ G. and ChoL Y.K. (1985). Settlement analysis of embankments on
softclays. ASCEJ. Geot. Eng. Div. 111(4):441-464.
MesrL G. and ChoL Y.K. ( 1987). Settlement analysis o f embankmcnts on
softc\ays: c\osure. ASCEJ. Geot. Eng. Div. 113(9):1076- 1085.
MesrL G . and Feng , T.W. (1992). ·eonstant rate of strain consolidation
testing of soft clays. Proc. Marta/ Symp., Mexioo City, Mexico:49-
59.
MescL G. arid Lo, 0 .0.K ( 1986). An analysis ofthe Gloucester test fi1L
Proc. Symp. NRC, Ottawa, Canada.
Mesri, G., Lo, D.O.K., and Karlsrud, K. ( 1988). ILLICON analysis of
Ellingsrud test filL Proc. 2nd /ntemational Conf on Case Histories
in Geot. Eng., 3, Rolla, Missouri:1765-1770. "- · ·
~;~-"if..1:>
Mesri, G. and Lo, D.0 .K. ( 1989). Subsoil investigation: the weakest link' ~
in thé analysis of test fills. Proc. Peck Symp., Urbana, lllinois,
Prentice Hall:308-335.
Mesri, G. and Olson, R.E. ( 1971). Mechanisms controlling the
permeability of clays. Clays and Clay Mwrals 19(3):151-158.
Mesri, G. and Rokhsar, A. (1974). Theory of oonsolidation for clay~.
ASCE J. of Geot. Eng. Div. 100(8):889·904.
Tavenas, F., Leblond, P., Jean, P., and Leroueil, S. (1983a). The
penneability of natural soft clays. Part I: Methods of laboratoiy
measurement. Canadian Geot. J. 20(4):629-644.
Tavenas, F., Jean, P., Leblond, P., and Leroueil, S. (1983b). The
permeability of natural soft days. Part U: Permeability
characteristics. Canadian Geot. J. 20(4):645-660.
Tavenas, F., Tremblay, M., Larouche, G., and Leroueil, S. (1986). In situ
measurement of permeability in soft clays. A SCE Specialty Conf on
Use of In Situ Testing in Geot. Eng., Blacksburg. Virginia: 1034-1048.
$~
··~