Prediction of the compression index of saturated clays (Cc) using polynomial models

Settlement-based design for shallow foundation realizing consolidation aspect is a major task of geotechnical engineer. Compression index (Cc) from the oedometer test is used to estimate the consolidation settlement of clays. Since the determination of Cc from oedometer tests is relatively time-consuming, empirical equations, based on index properties, can be useful for settlement estimation. Empirical correlations have been proposed to relate Cc of clay deposits to other soil parameters. New polynomial models are proposed for correlation. In order to assess the merits of the proposed approach, a database containing 352 data points has been compiled from case histories via geotechnical investigation sites in the province of Mazandaran, along southern shoreline of the Caspian Sea, Iran. We compare our results, involving polynomial tting with earlier results of statistical correlation relations, with other geotechnical soil properties. The predicted values using our model are checked with the measured ones to evaluate the performance of the polynomial model. The results suggest that the newly proposed approach of correlation provides a means for recognizing, more eciently, the patterns in the data and predicting the Cc, reliably.