Haslinda Nahazanan - Research Student

Telephone: 25056
Room: E104

email : cip06hn@sheffield.ac.uk

Research Group

Research Project

A microstructural approach to the compression of mudrock fills

Mudrock is a general term for fine-grained sedimentary rocks that include claystone and clayshale, mudstone and mud shale and siltstone and silt shale. It is frequently encountered in soil mechanics and foundation engineering as it constitutes more than 50% of all the sedimentary rock cover exposed at the surface of the earth. Mudrock is a material that tends to change from a brittle crushable nature to a ductile clay material when in contact with water with associated stability problems in slopes, excessive settlement problems in deep fills and breakdown of materials in unmetalled road pavements. However, little research has been conducted on these rocks and in particular the transition from soft rock to clay.

The main objective of this research is to understand the behaviour of the mudrock when used as a fill, concentrating on the degradation to a clay when submerged. The properties of mudrock fills when dry and when subjected to submersion and in particular how it breaks down when the water table rises will be investigated.

An expected outcome from this research is for example to provide a tool for engineers to predict settlement-time relationships for large areas of fill.