Abstract
A deep understanding of mechanics of behavior of shale is very important because of its properties when associated with other geomaterials and its suitability as a host materials for engineering applications. Investigating compression behavior is essential because geotechnical and geological problems can be analyzed using data obtained from one-dimensional compression tests. To achieve this, odometer tests were conducted on the reconstituted and intact samples of shale. In addition, chemical, microstructural and mineralogical analyses were studied. Shale is dominated by quartz, hornblende and calcites. The fabric is characterized by continuous clusters with few inter clusters voids. The compressibility is low and the yield stress is medium to high. The degree of enhance resistance in compression is positive. 1. INTRODUCTION Investigating compression behavior of geomaterials is very essential because it is the means by which one of important parameter for computations in geotechnical engineering (compression index) can be obtained. The parameters obtained from compression tests on geomaterials are commonly used for the analyses of many geotechnical and geological problems. For example, settlement calculations which can result from several factors such mining subsidence, debris flow, slope failure and earthquake. So the knowledge about compression behavior has been important for the practitioners in geological and geotechnical engineering profession. The understanding has been widespread for sedimentary clays (e.g., Burland 1990; Gasparre and Coop 2008; Liu et al. 2103; Mataic et al. 2015) and other related geomaterials (e.g., Okewale and Coop 2017, 2018a, 2018b, 2020; Okewale 2019a, 2020a, 2020c; Rocchi et al. 2015, 2017). However, such studies are very limited for shale. Although some work have been done on mechanical properties of shale (strength, stiffness, brittleness) using uniaxial and triaxial compression tests as well as Brazilian tests (e.g., Cho et al. 2012; Arora and Mishra 2015; Wang et al. 2016; Hou et al. 2019) but majority of them are on shear loading and study on compression loading is still scanty despite its significance. Shale belongs to sedimentary geomaterials and its properties (e.g., very low permeability, sealing potential) make it suitable for various engineering applications...