Comparison of Properties of Cohesive Soils Along East Coast of India

The coastline of India is speckled with a large number of ports (major and minor). In connection with the construction of new ports and upgradation of existing ports, a lot of construction has taken place over a decade or two. This involved jetties, container yard, railway connectivity to existing railway network, deepening of berth pockets and channels, etc. On the geotechnical front, these involved reclamation, embankment construction, pile foundations, deep excavations, etc. The east coast of India is characterised by silty clay over a large distance from West Bengal to Tamil Nadu cutting across Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. A few kilometres inland from the coast, the region also comprises silty clay, probably residual deposits arising out of weathering of volcanic rocks. In this paper, laboratory test data from many of the sites are analysed to look for any behavioural pattern. The compression properties of the cohesive soils are looked into and compared with correlations available in the literature. It is seen that the compression characteristics do follow a definite trend although there is scatter. The aim of publishing this field data is to help designers in selecting parameters in the preliminary design stage before any detailed investigations are carried out. This could also help in estimating quantities for tender preparations with a fair amount of certainty on the primary consolidation settlements resulting from reclamation, embankment construction, and also the extent of ground improvement required, if any.