Description of Anisotropic Consolidation of Clays

One of the major problems in soil mechanics is proper understanding and description of anisotropy induced by one-dimensional consolidation. It is well-known that specimens of homogeneous clay, trimmed at different directions to the major consolidating stress, exhibit different failure stresses in undrained triaxial compression and different stiffness moduli prior to failure. Such anisotropy can be attributed to preferred orientation of clay particles during consolidation process (textural anisotropy) or to residual stress resulting from inhomogeneity of deformation on the microscale (residual stress anisotropy).