The consolidation characteristics of a saturated silty clay under thermal loading are discussed. Test results show that

for various confining pressures

the evolution patterns of whether pore pressure or volumetric strain is similar. In the process of temperature rising

the pore pressure increases continually with elapsed time

and the pore pressure also reaches to a peak pore pressure (or a steady value) when the specimen is heated to a required higher temperature value. Furthermore

this peak pore pressure increases as the confining pressure increases. Besides

the consolidation volumetric strain (i.e.

shrinkage deformation) by heating is greater than the volumetric strain (i.e.

expansion deformation) by cooling; in other words

the specimen totally takes on a shrinkage effect after a complete process of heating and cooling.