Stress relaxation effect on uniaxial compressive strength values of a silt type soil

In this study, stress relaxation tests were carried out by keeping silt type soil specimens under different strain levels. Decreases in the stress values with time data was collected to better understand the effect of the strain level on the relaxation properties of soil specimens. In addition, the stress relaxation effect on the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) values of the specimens was investigated with a series of tests. According to the results obtained from this study, the UCS values of the silt specimens significantly vary as a result of the stress relaxation effect. The UCS values were determined to increase with an increase of relaxation strain level to a threshold value. On the other hand, the UCS values were found to be affected adversely in case of high stress levels at the initiation of the relaxation, which are close to the peak level.