Abstract

Sensitive clay is a kind of natural soil known to develop occasional flow slides. Understanding its behaviour becomes a demanding research field due to the rapid development of infrastructures, housing projects, and large-scale land reclamations. The economical implication of constructing foundations built on sensitive clay becomes evident while considering the wide occurrence of this clay in the Eastern Canada and other parts of the world. In order to understand its special features, research studies in the literature are mostly devoted to the exploration of the fundamental properties of sensitive clay, the evaluation of different testing techniques, the appropriate methods of testing, and case studies. Research on the strength of sensitive clay has been lagging, especially when subjected cyclic loading. Due to the complex behaviour of sensitive clay, developing a unique model, which incorporates many parameters, is practically impossible. This thesis represents a study of parameters, which are believed to influence the strength properties of sensitive clays. The experimental data available at Concordia University and in the literature are used extensively to evaluate the role of each parameter. Based on the results of these analyses, a step-by-step design approach has been developed and tested for designing foundations on sensitive clay. This procedure can also be used to examine the condition of an existing foundation built on sensitive clay