Determination of the Relationship Between Uniaxial and Triaxial Swelling Equations for Clay Bearing Rocks

Abstract

Design in swelling mediums is mostly based on uniaxial data since the standards proposed by the International Society for Rock Mechanics Commission on Swelling Rocks for uniaxial tests are in the form of recommendations, triaxial sets are not highly available; and there is no standard developed for triaxial tests. The main purpose of this study is to define the relationship between the uniaxial and the triaxial swelling equations and to predict the triaxial values using the uniaxial data. The other purpose of the study is to contribute to the development of the standards and to expand the data available in the literature about triaxial swelling behavior. Numerous uniaxial and triaxial swelling tests were performed on the samples from seven different locations, in Turkey, in a state of the art swelling laboratory. As a result of the determination of the triaxial swelling behavior of these samples, the relationships between the uniaxial and the triaxial swelling data for the individual samples as well as the whole set of samples are expressed by the equations derived from the statistical analyses.