Abstract
Numerouslong-term consolidation and secondary compression settlements may occur in Busan clay, which is astructured soft clay and consists of a thick clay deposit. As a surcharge load is applied to soils, soils experience different stress paths with depth. Therefore, it is necessary to study the long-term consolidation behavior of Busan clay considering stress conditions such as OC or NC states. In this study, a series of long-term consolidation tests were performed to investigate the consolidation characteristics of Busan clay for 20 days. The undisturbed clay samples were taken from 3 sites located in the Nakdong River estuary. The results showed that the creep rate of the Busan clay gradually decreased with time, which indicated that the secondary compression settlement decreased with time. In addition, the experimental results for 3 samples showed that the ratios were about 0.0363 and 0.051, respectively.