1

BEHAVIOUR OF PEAT REACTION WHEN LOADED

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

Peat can react in two ways when load is applied to its surface:
A. slowly, with a steady settlement and volume change as water is forced out
of the peat mass. This is the desired method for the construction of a floating
road and permits the peat to gradually compress and consolidate allowing time
for it to gain in strength and take up the new load. For this to happen the loading
phases need to be carefully controlled in order to keep the stresses induced in
the peat below the strength of the peat at the time. This is a key consideration
for the construction of a stable floating road.
B. rapidly, accompanied by sudden spread and shear of the peat causing
failure. This rapid failure scenario has to be avoided in floating road construction
by carefully managing the loading phases of the road. It can however be used as
an effective engineering technique (displacement) where it is intended that the
road should be founded on the hard strata below. This practice is out with the
remit of this report however.
It is therefore vitally important that the Designer should have an appreciation of
how construction loading rates can affect the consolidation and settlement
behaviour of peat in order to avoid a failure on site. Modern site investigation
and analysis techniques can quantify such risks so that appropriate measures
can be put in place to ensure that the works can be constructed safely.

Peat should be loaded slowly to

allow the underlying peat to
respond to the increasing load
and be given sufficient time to
consolidate and gain strength
rather than shear.
If a floated road is placed
too
quickly
so
as
to
approach, or exceed, the in
situ
strength
of
the
underlying peat then failure
can follow.
If peat is loaded too quickly,
without allowing time for water
pressures to be released, the in
situ peat will effectively have
the shear strength of its water,
i.e. zero.
This has to be avoided at all
costs.

Modern design methodologies

and
risk
management
strategies can help prevent this
but designers should be aware
that serious shear stresses can
be induced in peat, even by
moderate fills, if loadings are
not sufficiently controlled.

1.1 1.7. Effects of water & preconsolidation

Peat is a relatively recent material compared to other soils, having formed over the years in the Northern
Periphery since the retreat of the glaciers around 10,000 years ago. Unlike most northern soils, peat has not
been preconsolidated by the weight of a glacier. It can however sometimes be preconsolidated where the water
level in the peat have been lowered during its formation, eg by a drought, drainage or through dewatering by
vegetation such as forests.

All changes in water level within a peat deposit, whether natural or man-made, have an effect on the way the
insitu peat deals with stress. Lowering the water table inside a bog will reduce the pore water pressure within the
peat matrix and cause an increase in effective pressure triggering consolidation, (ie total stress minus reduced
pore water pressure = increased effective stress).

Stress in soil (a).

Stress in soil (b) Showing how lowering

the water table can produce an
increase in effective stress.

The effect is not so common in the case of raised bogs but commonly happens
in the blanket bogs of Iceland.

For this reason it is important that the hydrology of a peat deposit is preserved
during roadworks, and afterwards, as an unintended change in water
management can have unexpected results. This is particularly the case with the
excavation of new or deepened drains close to a floating road on peat after it has
been constructed. New drainage can result in significant unexpected
consolidation in the peat that can damage otherwise good construction.

Diagrams showing the effect of digging new ditches close to an existing floating road on peat.

Drainage ahead of construction can however sometimes be beneficial, especially

as in Iceland where a stable water regime can be established for the finished
road in the long term. Such work will invariably require the consent of the local
environmental authority.

2 GIROUD AND NOIRA Y METHOD

2.1 General
Giroud and Noiray (1981) use the geometric model shown in Fig. 10. 1 for a
wheel load pressure of pec on an area (B x L), which dissipates through h0
thickness of aggregate base without geotextile and 'h' thickness of aggregate
base with geotextile.

Fig. 10. 1 Load distribution through sub base (After Giroud and Noiray, 1981)
The geometry indicated results in a stress of p 0 (without geotextile) and p (with
geotextile) on the soil subgrade as follows:

(10.1)

where,
P = Axle load,
= Unit weight of aggregate,
= load dispersion angle for unreinforced case, and
0= load dispersion angle for reinforced case.
shallow foundation theory of geotechnical engineering can be utilized. Assuming
that the soil subgrade consists of fine-grained silt and clay in saturated condition,
shear strength is taken as the undrained cohesion.
Without geotextile, it is again assumed that the maximum pressure that can be
maintained corresponds to the elastic limit of the soil, that is,
p0 = pC + h0

(10.1)

and that with geotextile the limiting pressure can be increased to the ultimate
bearing capacity of the soil, that is,
p* = (+2) C + h0

3 Unpaved Road without Geotextile by Quasi-Static

Analysis (h0 vs CBR)
For the case of no geotextile reinforcement, equation (10.1) and (10.3) can be
solved, resulting in equation (10.5), which yields the desired aggregate thickness
response curve without the use of a geotextile:

where,
C = cohesion,
P = axle load,
Pc = tyre inflation pressure,
h0= aggregate thickness, and
ao=load dispersion angle (assumed as 26 de.blfccs).
The cohesion and CBR (%)of the subgrade soil is related empirically using the
equation (IRC: 37-2001) as
CBR = 30c
where, c is the cohesion in kPa.
Thus, graphs can be plotted connecting aggregate thickness (ho) and CBR of the
subgrade soil for different values of axle load and tyre pressure. Typical one for a
wheel load of 81. 7kN with a tyre pressure of 480kPa is shown in Fig.10.2

or the case where geotextile reinforcement is used, p* in equation (lOA) is

replaced by (p-pg), where pg is a function of tension in the geotextile; hence its
elongation is significant. On the basis of the probable deflected shape of the
geotextile- soil system pg is expressed as,

where,
Es = Modulus of coir geotextile,
= Strain,
a = geometric property (Fig. 0.1), and
S = Settlement under the wheel (rut depth).
Combining equations 10.2, 10.4 and 10.7 and using p* = P-Pg, it gives equation
10.8