Comparison in Mechanical Behavior between Undisturbed and Reconstituted Shanghai Soft Clay

In order to study the effects of soil structure on compression and shear behavior, a number of isotropic compression and consolidated-drained triaxial shear tests on Shanghai soft clay in undisturbed and reconstituted samples have been carried out. Comparisons of measured compression curves indicate that undisturbed samples have larger void ratio than reconstituted samples at the same confining pressure. Comparisons of measured stress ratio-strain curves indicate that the confining pressure has no effect on the reconstituted samples but has an effect on the undisturbed samples. The strength of undisturbed samples is lower than that of reconstituted samples when sheared at the same confining pressure. This behavior is explained to be caused by the difference in void ratio between two type samples.