Determining the compressibility of slurry via double drainage self-weight sedimentation test

Abstract

Determining the compressibility of slurry with high water contents via self-weight consolidation test usually requires excessive testing time. To overcome such shortcoming, double drainage self-weight sedimentation test (DDSST) is used in this study. The stress equilibrium at the steady state under double drainage condition is analyzed, based on which the relation between effective stress σ′and the distribution of water contents is investigated. Accordingly, the procedure for calculating σ′- e relation with obtained distribution of water contents is presented. To verify the feasibility of determining σ′- e relation of slurry with DDSST, DDSSTs were conducted on two types of slurry. Calculated results according to the given procedure show that, the σ′- e relation obtained via DDSST is basically the same with the one obtained via single drainage self-weight sedimentation test (SDSST), which demonstrate the effectiveness of DDSST in determining the compressibility of slurry. Furthermore, using DDSST rather than SDSST could significantly shorten the testing time and reduce experimental material usage.

Keywords

• Compressibility
• Slurry
• Self-weight sedimentation test
• Double drainage