An overview of he mechanical behaviour of peats and organic soils and some appropriate construction techniques

The behaviour of peats and organic soils is usually approached with the concepts and methods developed for inorganic clays. However, important anomalies exist, and these are given emphasis in the present overview of the mechanical behaviour of these soils. Subject headings include index properties and general characteristics, classification...

Evaluation of creep models for soft soils (under axially symmetric conditions)

Review and validation of settlement prediction methods for organic soft soils, on the basis of three case studies from the Netherlands

Organic soft soils pose technical challenges in construction industry due to their extraordinary compressibility and deformability, which is an issue of particular relevance in the densely populated Netherlands, of which more than half of the land surface is covered by such soft soils. Uncertainty and variability in settlement predictions for...

Advances in Modelling the Deviatoric Response of Peat

The term peat is commonly used to describe organic soils, composed of fragmented plant remains and fibers. Despite the extensive research on the behaviour of peat during the last 50 years, the vast majority of the attention was devoted to the volumetric behaviour. Only few attempts are reported to model the deviatoric behavior of peat, which is...

Experimental results on the influence of gas on the mechanical response of peats

Direct observation of gas in peat layers, generated by slow degradation in anoxic conditions, raised concern in the Netherlands about its potential impact on the geotechnical response of dykes founded on peat. To address this issue, an experimental investigation was initiated, aimed at quantifying the main consequences of the presence of gas...

The deviatoric behaviour of peat: a route between past empiricism and future perspectives

The geotechnical description of peats represents one of the main challenges in the Netherlands to assure the required safety standard and performance of the flood defence infrastructure. Almost a third of the country is situated below the sea and the rivers level with about 60% to 70% of the population and economic assets concentrated in low...

Effect of Oxidation on the Compression Behaviour of Organic Soils

Organic soils and peat soils are widely distributed across the world, particularly in the Northern hemisphere in countries like Canada and Russia having 170 and 150 million hectares respectively and in tropical regions such as Indonesia and Malaysia, which contain 26 million and 3 million hectares respectively. Organic soils and peat are...

Gas exsolution and gas invasion in peat: Towards a comprehensive modelling framework

Increasing climatic stresses accelerate the degradation of highly organic soils, like peat, by increasing their drying rate above the water table and their decomposition rate under water. Recent experimental studies provide evidence of the consequences of these processes on the hydro-mechanical properties of peat. However, modelling the...

Experimental determination of the shear strength of peat from standard undrained triaxial tests: Correcting for the effects of end restraint

Conventional triaxial tests on peats are strongly criticised due to the very high shear strength parameters obtained from standard data elaboration, leading to unrealistic factors of safety when used in geotechnical design and assessment. Various operational approaches have been proposed in the literature to overcome this difficulty; however,...

Testing and modeling of sheet pile reinforced dikes on organic soils: Insights from the Eemdijk full-scale failure test

The Netherlands is inherently challenged by water, as a large part of the country lies below sea level and several major rivers in North-western Europe cross the country. The most prevalent form of protection from coastal and river floods in the Netherlands includes approximately 22,000 km of earthen dikes, of which 3800 km are primary flood...