Abstract
An investigation has been made into the effects of geological structure of Nigeria clay in compression by employing comparisons between the soil in the natural state and the same soil in the reconstituted state. Apart from classification and index tests studied, geochemistry and microstructure were investigated using scanning electron microscope equipped with energy dispersive spectrometry and mineralogy studied using X-ray diffraction. Convergence behavior was seen in the soils and the mineralogy is dominated by kaolinites. The effects of structure were determined by applying normalizations and sensitivity analysis. The degree of enhanced strengths in compression were found to be positive and small to medium in magnitude. 1. INTRODUCTION Structure is the combination of bonding (inter particle forces which are not purely frictional) and fabric (arrangement of constituent particles). Bonding is the product of several forces (e.g., electromagnetic, electrostatic) which acts to connect the particles that have developed throughout the geological life of geomaterials (e.g., Cotecchia and Chandler 1997) and fabric includes particle size, shape, distribution and voids. In this work, structure is used for clays in their natural state which indicates structure depends on geological history. Effect of structure is increase in strength and stiffness of geomaterials as a result of bonding and fabric in compression and shearing. Due to effect of structure in one-dimensional compression, natural or intact geomaterials may reach higher stresses compared to stresses reached by reconstituted materials at a given specific volume (e.g., Gasparre and Coop 2008; Okewale and Coop 2017)...