A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, School of Engineering and Technology

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007

In the last 20 years, the Vietnamese petroleum industry has played an important role in development of the country. The growth of petroleum industry puts big demands on construction of oil and gas facilities, many of which are now being built or planned to be developed all over the country, especially in the coastal areas in Southern Vietnam, where the main oil fields are being exploited offshore. In addition, the economic rapid growth brings about the increasing demands in infrastructure development, mainly is in delta areas in which Red river delta and Mekong delta are two biggest deltas where most of economic activities are going on and the soft clay deposits are widespread in these deltas. As soft clays have low strength and high compressibility many failures and damages can occur to energy facilities constructed on them, causing the increase in construction cost and creating the safety concerns. A systematic characterization of soft clay deposits in Vietnam is therefore needed and helpful for sustainable infrastructure development. In this study, geological, and geotechnical data were collected to build up the database of soft clays by using Microsoft Access and Rockworks2006. Data collected were analyzed to help understand better the formation, distribution and geotechnical properties of soft clays in the major deltas of Vietnam, i.e, Red river delta, Mekong delta and Dong Nai river delta. Intrinsic compression of soft clays were evaluated to have more insights into structuration of soft clays and hence their possibility of being disturbed. One of important out put of this study is construction of two new soil database for Mekong delta and Dong Nai river delta which are useful for infrastructure project including the reduction in cost for soil investigation