Abstract: With the sustainable development of global economy，the pollution of heavy metal increases greatly in the foundation soil，thus bringing great harm to engineering construction. A series of tests were performed to study engineering properties of artificial zinc contaminated clay. The results showed that relative density of solid particles and plasticity index increased with the increase in zinc concentration，liquid limit and plastic limit decreased with the increase in zinc concentration. As zinc concentration increased，the compression coefficient of zinc polluted soil was increased whereas the compression modulus was decreased. Shear strength of contaminated soil decreased with the increase of zinc concentration. Stress-strain curves showed that it was a strain-hardening characteristics of zinc contaminated soil under unconsolidated undrained triaxial tests，the destruction of zinc contaminated soil showed a plastic damage characteristics.