Geotechnical properties of marine soil off north Konkan Coast

Abstract

Construction of any coastal structure requires detailed investigations on the environmental parameters as well as on the foundation soil. Preliminary geotechnicla investigations on the seabed sediment leads to a qualitative representation of the sediments present on the sea floor. Using a gravity corer, developed at the Institute, undisturbed seabed sediment cores were collected at six locations off North Konkan Coast, at water depths between 6 and 20 m. These sediment samples were tested for various geotechnical properties. These sediments were found to have less bulk density, low carbonate content, high plasticity index with very low undrained shear strength. Grain size distribution shows that the sediments consist of 60% to 80% silt with 18% clay. The sand content was less than 2%.