Engineering properties of peat in estuarine environment

Abstract

The objective of this study is to carry out an in-depth study of the engineering properties of peat soil in estuarine environments in selected countries. These countries are: Australia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Turkey, and Vietnam. Peat is highly organic, extremely compressible and is known to be problematic for geotechnical works. Peat exhibits unique geotechnical properties in comparison with those of inorganic soils such as sandy, silty or clayey soils. It has an adverse effect on the settlement of foundations where the highly compressible peat can bring about excessive settlements for buildings constructed above it. Further, peat causes instability problems such as development of slip failure, local sinking, and massive primary and long-term settlement even when load increases moderately. This paper reviews and investigates the engineering properties of peat soil in those countries with reference to the physical and geotechnical properties.These properties are:consolidation characteristics, Atterberg limits, density, organic content, shear strength, and moisture content. Moisture content and organic content are the most indicative characteristics of peat due to its extraordinary high moisture and organic content. Surfers Paradise South East Queensland has been selected as the study area for peat in Australia for examining the engineering properties of peat. Peat in this region is embedded at depth ranging between 1.10 to 40.90 m below the ground surface and hasthickness reaching 7 m in some locations. A comparison between peat in Surfers Paradise and the aforementioned countries is also provided. Finally, the behaviours of peat in studied area are assessed and conclusions are made.