Effect of suction on time-dependent behavior of intact loess under oedometric conditions: Strain rate dependency and stress relaxation

Many geotechnical failures are associated with degradation of the soil strength over time. The time-dependency behavior of unsaturated loess is often required to evaluate the long-time behavior of geotechnical engineering in loess areas. To investigate such strain rate response and stress relaxation behavior of intact loess, a series of oedometric compression and relaxation tests were conducted under different suctions and strain rates. Water retention behaviors and microstructures were also measured to characterize the tested loess. The more rapid strain rate, leading to larger yield stress at relatively low suctions (0 and 50 kPa) and roughly paralleled one-dimensional normal compression lines (1D-NCL) conformed to the isotache approach. In contrast, the weakening effect of a more rapid strain rate on the clay cementation, resulted in smaller yield stress when the suction was larger than 100 kPa, which was an apparent deviation from the conception of the isotache. The reason might be that the microstructure developed during the long term (slow strain rate) under the relatively larger suction, which may increase the inter-particle bonding and structural strength. The relaxation behavior of unsaturated loess depended on suction and prerelaxation stress, which cannot be well described by the model with a soil constant viscosity I_v. The results of two viscous effects (rate-dependency and relaxation) in loess demonstrated that they could not altogether be explained within the isotache concept.