The Compression Behaviour of Marine Clays in Malaysia

Abstract

The paper presents results of experimental works on intact marine clay samples in Malay and Sarawak Basins, which is located in Malaysia. Recent development in economic and search of new energy has brought to the usage of areas with plenty of marine clay inshore and offshore. For offshore area, the seabed foundation support or subsurface installation often create several complexities in geotechnical design due to high compression behavior and low bearing capacity. Knowledge of seabed soils and rocks is very important in designing any structures onshore or nearshore. However, the seabed data properties in Malaysia is less and not many researches have been done to contribute to this database. Series of oedometer tests performed intact clay samples from different depths showed inconsistency patterns of compression behavior. The preconsolidation pressure for all samples ranged from 200 to 500 kPa, which can be compared with the presence literature for the compression behavior towards denser soil. The compression index, Cc ranged from 0.177 to 0.797 and Swelling index, Cs ranged from 0.133 to 0.066.