STUDY ON CORRELATIONS OF PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL PROPERTY INDEXES OF YANGZHOU CLAYS

The correlations of physical index and mechanical parameters, according to experimental data of Yangzhou clays, are investigated in this paper. The statistical results show that there is a positive correlation between the plasticity index and compressibility or bulk compressibility, while there is a negative correlation with internal friction angle or effective internal friction angle. Also, the cohesion decreases with the increase of liquid index, while it increases with the increase of the difference between liquid limit and water content. And the correlation coefficient of cohesion and liquid index is higher. However, if the water content is higher than the liquid limit, the cohesion is independent of the liquidity index or the difference value. In addition, the samples of Yangzhou clays exhibit obviously unimodal pore-size distribution(PSD), obtained from the mercury intrusion porosimetry tests on undisturbed clays. The volume of the inter-particle pores increases, while pore diameter corresponding to the peak of PSD decreases with the increase of the plasticity index. The above results provide a simple method for estimating the mechanical parameters of clay in Yangzhou area.