Quickness Test Approach for Assessment of Flow Slide Potentials

Abstract

Sensitive clays are known to result in massive flow slides and thereby resulting in loss of human lives and damaging nearby transportation infrastructures. Flow behaviors of these clays are usually characterized by their undrained shear strength at their fully remolded state. Therefore, assessment of flow slides in sensitive clays is directly related to their remolded shear strength. In other words, the extent of flow slides is crucially influenced by the remolded shear strength of the sensitive clays. However, a seemingly small variation in remolded shear strength has significant alteration in the flow behavior of sensitive clays. This paper study this aspect using a novel and pragmatic test procedure referred to as the quickness tests. This test amplifies the smaller range of remolded shear strength in term of parameter called quickness. The test has an advantage of giving a better visualization about the behavior of sensitive clays. Based on relevant Norwegian landslides data, a quickness based criteria to asses the potential for occurrence of flow slides is proposed.