Effect of salinity on consolidation of peat

Abstract

Peat is a problematic geotechnical material, which could cause large settlements when subjected to loading because of the consolidation effect. Other than the well known factors which can have an impact on consolidation of peat, according to Zhang and O’Kelly (2013) addition of salt grains also improves the primary consolidation rate of peat specimens. In this research, the impact of salinity of water for the rate of consolidation was analyzed. The samples were mixed prior to and after addition of salt to achieve identical samples. Kaolin clay samples were used as a control specimen and those samples had no considerable effect on consolidation rate with the addition of salt grains. It was found that under similar conditions of one dimensional loading, consolidation rate of peat can be increased with the addition of salt. For quantitative analysis further experiments are required.