Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ACTA GEOTECHNICA SLOVENICA, cilt.11, sa.1, ss.29-39, 2014 (SCI-Expanded)
Weakly cemented tufas are sand and silt size soils that are weakly bonded with thin films of carbonate cement. The void ratio is rather high and equal to approximately 1.2. Collapse occurs as a result of the destruction of the weak bonds upon loading and/or wetting. The index properties and the collapse potential (C-p) of tufa were determined in the laboratory. In the determination of the collapse-potential values the single-ring oedometer method was considered to be a suitable and simpler tool. In plotting the oedometer test results the use of a natural scale was preferred over a logarithmic scale so that the void ratio-pressure relationship is polynomial. Under loading the soil settles with the natural water content; however, saturation increases the collapse that is initially triggered by the pressure increase. The pressure level is a significant parameter in the magnitude of the collapse and therefore in the total settlement. The settlement of foundations due to a collapse of the soil structure can be estimated directly using the oedometer test results and empirically using the index properties, like the initial void ratio (e(0)), the difference in the fine content between the dry and the wet sieve analyses (PFAW) and the natural unit weight. A comparison of the direct and empirical approaches yielded a good agreement.