Thixotropic Properties of Deepwater Indian Marine Clays from Eastern Offshore—Evaluation and Correlations

Abstract

Thixotropy of clays is an important parameter in offshore geotechnical engineering. Thixotropy is responsible for the short-term gain in undrained shear strength of clays after remolding, and hence, it is imperative to incorporate it in the analysis while estimating the short-term load carrying capacity of foundation systems at varying time after their installation. Different clays display different thixotropic properties, and so far, there has been negligible information available about Indian offshore clays. Hence, this paper presents and discusses the thixotropic properties of eastern offshore deepwater clays measured during a recent geotechnical investigation.The paper discusses different factors which affect the thixotropic behavior of clays along with the investigations done and reported in the literature to correlate thixotropy with other soil parameters such as plasticity index, liquidity index, and water content. Further, a comparison is presented between the eastern Indian offshore thixotropy data with the published data from other parts of the world. Evaluation of possibility of development of some correlation(s) for Indian offshore thixotropy data has also been presented.