Bodenmechanische Eigenschaften organischer Ablagerungen der brandenburgischen Niederungs- und Luchgebiete

Soil mechanical properties of organic deposits in Brandenburg's lowland river valley regions.

Organic soils are extremely heterogeneous and widely variable in contrast with most granular, silty and clayey soils. Safe and efficient design of subsoil improvement measures in such difficult organic soils therefore requires extensive knowledge of their properties and their mechanical behaviour. So far there has been a lack of complete and cohesive information about organic soil behaviour in the relevant literature. This paper details the main laboratory test results obtained from approx. 650 mostly undisturbed samples of peat and gyttja taken in the course of several infrastructure projects in the State of Brandenburg. Evaluation of the test results considered soil classification parameters, stress and time dependent deformation behaviour in addition to rate dependent shear behaviour. Data from cone penetration (CPT) and field vane (FVT) tests were also included in the interpretation of results. A significantly extended organic soil classification scheme is presented here based on these results. The text also takes a detailed look at a large number of specific problems that are encountered when conducting organic soil investigations.