ABSTRACT
In excavation engineering, the stress state in the soil mass changes usually along decreasing average normal stress paths (will be called ″decreasing p path″ for short). A series of stress path tests are carried out for undisturbed mucky clay samples from Hankou. Firstly, the samples are consolidated under K0 condition to a given stress level. Then according to the given constant stress incremental ratio λ (λ = dp/dq, dp<0), loads are changed step by step until the specimen fails. The test results indicate that there is a good hyperbolic connection between the axial strain and stress ratio R in all kinds of decreasing p path tests. Volume change behaviour in drained tests and pore pressure characteristics in undrained tests are described. Furthermore, the extension of nonlinear E-v model to decreasing p path conditions is also discussed in this paper.
