Dilating Behaviour of Overconsolidated Clay

International audience; The object of this study was to understand and characterize dilatancy in clay in relation to the overconsolidation ratio. This phenomenon was investigated along a large range of loading paths, with strong emphasis placed on constant mean stress paths given that it was possible to measure the volumetric strain created by the sole deviatoric stress. Triaxial tests performed on remolded clay (Kaolinite P300) allowed us to determine three different types of behaviour for specimen submitted to a deviatoric stress: no volume change, dilatancy and contraction. In the (p', q) plane these domains are limited by the maximum strength envelope zeta, which coincides with the perfect plasticity line M for OCRs < 2. The experimental results were then compared to plastic flow theories used in the Cam Clay model and in Rowe's dilatancy theory. Finally, by measuring the plastic strain increment vectors along different stress paths in the (p', q) plane, we demonstrated that the uniqueness hypothesis of the plastic potential is not valid. The results could be explained by using two plastic strain mechanisms: a deviatoric one and an isotropic one.