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Over the past 70 years, a number of methods have been proposed for the interpretation of the characteristic vertical effective yield stress, or “preconsolidation pressure,” of compressible soils as defined using the standard oedometer test. The concept of the “preconsolidation pressure” has been extraordinarily useful in geotechnical engineering for analysing and predicting settlement behaviour and for normalizing other engineering parameters for comparative purposes. Defining this characteristic stress, however, is often problematic and relies heavily on graphical techniques that are subject to some uncertainty, particularly when using semi-log plots for this purpose. This paper illustrates fundamental difficulties with the interpretation of oedometer test and presents an alternative technique for defining unambiguous values of the vertical effective yield stress.

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