Cyclic shear response of channel-fill Fraser River Delta silt

The cyclic shear response of a channel-fill, low-plastic silt was investigated using constant-volume direct simple shear testing. Silt specimens, initially consolidated to stress levels at or above the preconsolidation stress, displayed cyclic-mobility-type strain development during cyclic loading without static shear stress bias. Liquefaction in the form of strain softening accompanied by loss of shear strength did not manifest regardless of the applied cyclic stress ratio, or the level of induced excess pore water pressure, suggesting that the silt is unlikely to experience flow failure under cyclic loading. The cyclic shear resistance of the silt increased with increasing overconsolidation ratio (OCR) for OCR>1.3. The silt specimens that experienced high equivalent excess cyclic pore water pressure ratios (r_u>80%) resulted in considerable volumetric strains (2.5%–5%) during post-cyclic reconsolidation implying potentially significant changes to the particle fabric under cyclic loading.     

Postliquefaction behavior of low-plasticity silt at various degrees of reconsolidation

During earthquake events, low-plasticity silt undergoes a reduction in shear strength and stiffness due to development of excess pore pressure induced by cyclic loading. With reconsolidation, during which process excess pore pressure is dissipated, the shear strength and stiffness can be regained. However, due to the low permeability of silts (compared to sands), the dissipation of excess pore pressure and the reconsolidation of low-plasticity silt takes much more time. This paper investigates the postliquefaction shear behavior of Mississippi River Valley (MRV) silt at various degrees of reconsolidation using triaxial tests. Test results indicate that there was a steady increase, in shear strength and stiffness, at both large and small deformations, with increase in the degree of reconsolidation. The postliquefaction silt showed the effect of the apparent OCR, which had a close effect on postcyclic shear behavior as did the OCR on the static behavior. The critical state lines of MRV silt were different for pre- and post-liquefaction conditions.     

Cyclic resistance and liquefaction behavior of silt and sandy silt soils

The liquefaction behavior and cyclic resistance ratio (CRR) of reconstituted samples of non-plastic silt and sandy silts with 50% and 75% silt content are examined using constant-volume cyclic and monotonic ring shear tests along with bender element shear wave velocity (V_s) measurements. Liquefaction occurred at excess pore water pressure ratios (r_u) between 0.6 and 0.7 associated with cumulative cyclic shear strains (γ) of 4% to 7%, after which cyclic liquefaction ensued with very large shear strains and excess pore water pressure ratio (r_u>0.8). The cyclic ring shear tests demonstrate that cyclic resistance ratio of silt and sandy silts decreases with increasing void ratio, or with decreasing silt content at a certain void ratio. The results also show good agreement with those from cyclic direct simple shear tests on silts and sandy silts. A unique correlation is developed for estimating CRR of silts and sandy silts (with more than 50% silt content) from stress-normalized shear wave velocity measurements (V_s1) with negligible effect of silt content. The results indicate that the existing CRR–V_s1 correlations would underestimate the liquefaction resistance of silts and sandy silt soils.     

Cyclic and post-cyclic shear behavior of low-plasticity silt with varying clay content

This paper investigates the cyclic and post-cyclic shear behavior of low-plasticity silt and the impact of additional clay content. Bentonite clay was added to the low-plasticity Mississippi River Valley (MRV) silt (PI=6) to increase the clay content of the soil. A series of triaxial tests were conducted in the laboratory to examine the shear and pore pressure behavior during and after cyclic loading. As the bentonite content in the reconstituted specimens increased, the excess pore pressure developed at a slower rate and the total excess pore pressure decreased at the end of cyclic loading. In contrast to the MRV silt, the specimens modified with bentonite experienced cyclic softening rather than initial flow liquefaction. The cyclic shear strength increased with an increase in bentonite content. The post-cyclic reconsolidation behavior was a similar to a virgin compression process, and not recompression. Adding bentonite to the MRV silt results in changes in permeability, compressibility, undrained shear strength, and initial stiffness. Additionally, the cyclic loading had a marked effect on the shear behavior of low-plasticity soil with a PI<6, but not noticeable with a PI>6. This study suggests that the behavior of the Mississippi River Valley silt changes from contractive sand-like material to clay-like behavior at a PI≈6 due to the addition of clay.     

The effect of plastic fines on the pore pressure generation characteristics of saturated sands

Pore water pressure generation during earthquake shaking initiates liquefaction and affects the shear strength, shear stiffness, deformation, and settlement characteristics of soil deposits. The effect of plastic fines (kaolinite) on pore pressure generation in saturated sands was studied through strain-controlled cyclic triaxial tests. In addition to pore pressure generation, this experimental study also focused on evaluating the threshold shear strain for pore pressure generation and the volumetric compressibility of specimens during pore pressure dissipation. The results reveal that specimens having up to 20% plastic fines content generated larger values of pore water pressure than clean sand specimens. At 30% fines content, the excess pore water pressure decreased below that of clean sand. The threshold shear strain, which indicates the strain level above which pore pressures begin to generate, was assessed for different kaolinite–sand mixtures. The threshold shear strain was similar for 0–20% fines (γ_t0.006–0.008%), but increased to about 0.025% for 30% fines. The volumetric compressibility, measured after pore pressure generation, was similar for all specimens. The transition of behavior at fines contents between 20% and 30% can be attributed to a change in the soil structure from one dominated by sand grains to one dominated by fines.     

Effect of non-plastic silt content on the liquefaction behavior of sand–silt mixture

To identify the effect of non-plastic silt on the cyclic behavior of sand–silt mixtures, total sixty undrained cyclic triaxial stress-control tests were carried out on sand–silt mixtures. These tests were conducted on specimens of size 71 mm diameter and 142 mm height with a frequency of 1 Hz. Specimens were prepared at a constant relative density and constant density approach. The effect of relative density, confining pressure as well as magnitude of cyclic loading was also studied. For a constant relative density (D_r=60%) the effect of limiting silt content, pore pressure response and cyclic strength was observed. The rate of generation of excess pore water pressure with respect to cycles of loading was found to initially increase with increase in silt content till the limiting silt content and thereafter it reverses its trend when the specimens were tested at a constant relative density. The cyclic resistance behavior was observed to be just opposite to the pore pressure response. Permeability, CRR and secant shear modulus decreased till limiting silt content; after that they became constant with increasing silt content.     

Evaluation of temperature and freeze–thaw effects on excess pore pressure generation of fine-grained soils

The November 3, 2002 Denali-Alaska earthquake (M_w=7.9) caused significant liquefaction associated damage to various infrastructure built on fine-grained soils. The seismic response, liquefaction potential, and excess pore pressure generation of soils in cold regions, especially those of fine-grained nature, have not been studied thoroughly and therefore are not well-understood. This paper presents results from an extensive laboratory study on the characteristics of excess pore pressure generation and liquefaction potential of fine-grained soils. Laboratory-constituted soils specimens were tested in four categories: (1) tests on specimens subjected to no thermal conditioning or freeze–thaw cycles; (2) tests on specimens conditioned at 24, 5, 1, 0.5, and −0.2 °C; (3) tests on specimens subjected to 1–4 freeze–thaw cycles; and (4) tests on specimens conditioned at near-freezing temperatures of 0.5 and −0.2 °C through different freeze–thaw paths. Strain-controlled, undrained, cyclic triaxial tests were performed at shear strain levels of 0.005–0.8%. Specimens conditioned at different temperatures were found to generate significantly different pore pressures with cyclic loading. The excess pore pressure generation at near or slightly below freezing was found to change dramatically. A transitional change in the dynamic soil behavior, attributed to unfrozen- or frozen-dominant pore water, was discovered. The threshold shear strain was also found to be influenced by the temperature. Subjecting the soil specimens to 1, 2 and 4 freeze–thaw cycles caused a reduction in excess pore pressure generation and slight change in the threshold shear strain. The temperature conditioning path to reach the target temperature was found to be important on the development of excess pore pressure at near and slightly below-freezing temperatures.     

Cyclic undrained behavior of silty sand

Laboratory cyclic triaxial tests were performed to investigate the effect of fine content on the pore pressure generation in sand. Strain-controlled, consolidated undrained tests have been performed with a cyclic shear strain range of 0·015-1·5%. These tests were carried to 1000 cycles or to initial liquefaction, which ever occurred first. Triaxial tests were performed on pure sand silt specimens and specimens with silt additions of 10, 20, 30, and 60% by weight. Two types of silt, a non-plastic silt and a low plasticity silt (PI 10) were used as control materials. The main parameters varied in this study were the amount of silt, the plasticity index of silt, and the void ratio where the observed parameter was the pore pressure generation. For all silt contents, silt plasticity and the number of loading cycles have no significant effect at strain levels below 0·01%. Therefore, threshold strain for silty sands have approximately the same value as sands. For both non-plastic and low plasticity silts, there is a significant increase in the generated pore pressure at high strain levels.     

Evolution of the shear wave velocity during shaking modeled in centrifuge shaking table tests

Two in-flight shear wave velocity measurement systems were developed to perform the subsurface exploration of shear wave velocity in a centrifuge model. The bender elements test and the pre-shaking test used in the study provided reliable and consistent shear wave velocity profiles along the model depth before and after shaking in the centrifuge shaking table tests. In addition, the use of the bender elements measurement system particularly developed here allowed continuous examination of the evolution of shear wave velocity not only during and after the shaking periods in the small shaking events but also during the dissipation period of excess pore water pressure after liquefaction in the large shaking events. The test results showed that the shear wave velocity at different values of excess pore water pressure ratio varied as the effective mean stress to the power of 0.27, to a first approximation. Consequently, a relationship between the shear wave velocity evolution ratio and the excess pore water pressure ratio is proposed to evaluate the changes in shear wave velocity due to excess pore water generation and dissipation during shaking events. This relation will assist engineers in determining the shear stiffness reduction ratio at various r_u levels when a sand deposit is subjected to different levels of earthquake shaking.     

颗粒组成对粉土动强度的影响分析

以天津汉沽地区某挡土墙地基粉土为研究对象,首先对不同颗粒组成的粉土做固结不排水动三轴剪切试验,采用各向等压固结,周围压力等于100kPa。固结完成后在不排水条件下施加轴向激振力,试验波形为正弦波,振动频率1.0Hz,试验中以试样在周期剪切时轴向周期应变达到5%作为破坏标准,得出粉土的动强度受颗粒组成的影响。细颗粒含量越大,其动强度越小,黏粒含量为7.2%的粉土循环剪应力比CSR约为20.3%黏粒含量粉土的2倍。粉土的动强度可以用循环剪应力比和破坏振次建立的幂函数关系式较好地拟合。在剪切过程中,粉土的孔隙水压力一直没有达到所施加的围压数值,最终稳定在75%~85%围压之间。同时,试验还得出孔隙水压力的增长模式不能用统一的Seed模型拟合,孔压增长规律的影响因素较多。     

Particle breakage of artificially crushable materials subject to drained cyclic triaxial loading

Upon cyclic loading, particle breakage of constituent granular materials occurs when the resulting local stresses exceed their strength, which has a significant influence on the deformation of the embankment, foundation and pavement structures. In this study, the artificially crushable materials were tested to investigate the particle breakage properties of these structures when subjected to drained cyclic triaxial loading. Twelve sets of samples were tested at the confining pressures of 100, 125, 150 and 175 kPa and a frequency of 1.0 Hz using a GCTS triaxial system. The cyclic test results indicate that at the same confining pressure, the residual volumetric strain increases with decreasing maximal deviatoric stress q_max at a given ratio of the number of cycles (N) to the number of cycles of failure (N_f). The cumulative crushing ratio R_cc decreases with increasing q_max, leading to a reduction in N_f. The internal frictional angle decreases with increasing R_cc, and R_cc increases with increasing N_f. Furthermore, the confining pressure, maximal cyclic deviatoric stress and N have significant influences on the degree of particle breakage, which leads to volumetric contraction during the cyclic loading process. Finally, the resilient modulus at failure increases linearly with increasing R_cc.     

Undrained monotonic and cyclic behavior of sand-ground rubber mixtures

In this study the stress–strain characteristics of sand-ground rubber mixtures are investigated in the sandlike zone,at different confining pressures,using hollow cylinder specimens subjected to torsional monotonic and cyclic loading.Under monotonic loading a mixture of sand-ground rubber with 10% and 25% rubber content show more contraction behaviour than that observed in a pure sand specimen.Phase transformation point in these mixtures are located on a larger shear strain.As expected,the shear strength of specimens decreases with increase of ground rubber content.However,with increasing of effective confining pressure,the loss in shear strength of the mixture is decreased.In addition,a mixture with 25% ground rubber shows a smaller loss in shear strength compared to a mixture with 10% ground rubber mixture.Under cyclic loading mixtures with 10% and 25% ground rubber have similar liquefaction resistance,especially at confining pressures of 110 k Pa and 260 k Pa.Therefore,by using of the mixture with 25% ground rubber,a larger volume of scrap tires could be recycled.The addition of ground rubber to sand would affect the shear strain variation and excess pore water pressure trends,and this effect was further intensified with increasing ground rubber percentage.     

Influence of cyclic loading history on small strain shear modulus of saturated clays

Small strain shear modulus G_max is an essential parameter in soil dynamics, and it is usually estimated based on the Hardin and Richart equation. However, many previous researches on sands have indicated that the Hardin and Richart equation does not consider the influences of cyclic loading history on G_max. In this paper, effects of cyclic loading history on G_max of saturated clays under undrained conditions are studied using a combination device of piezoelectric-ceramic bender element system and cyclic triaxial apparatus. The dynamic pre-loading includes both relatively high amplitudes of cyclic stresses and cyclic strains. G_max without cyclic loading history is also investigated for the comparison purpose. Test results show that, at the same effective stress, both cyclic strain history and cyclic stress history will induce reduction of G_max compared to the corresponding G_max values with non-cyclic loading effects. In strain-controlled tests, the reduction of G_max is slight and relatively stable; while in stress-controlled tests, the reduction of G_max increases suddenly and remarkably when the effective stresses degrade to a certain degree. The comparison between double amplitude axial strain and residual excess pore water pressure behaviors show that the remarkable reduction of G_max can demonstrate the cyclic failure of saturated clays.     

Cyclic response of saturated silts

Softening and strength loss of sands with increasing excess pore water pressure under repeated loads is well-known. However, extensive damage to the built environment also occurs at the sites underlain by fine grained soils during seismic shaking. The primary objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting cyclic behavior of saturated low-plastic silt through laboratory testing. For this purpose, an extensive laboratory testing program including conventional monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests was carried out over reconstituted silt samples. The effects of the inherent soil properties and the effects of loading characteristics on the cyclic response of saturated low-plastic reconstituted silt samples were examined separately. Based on the test results, a model was introduced to estimate the effect of initial shear stress on the cyclic response. Besides, liquefaction susceptibility of the samples was examined via current liquefaction susceptibility criteria.     

A practical numerical method for large strain liquefaction analysis of saturated soils

Accurate prediction of the liquefaction of saturated soils is based on strong coupling between the pore fluid phase and soil skeleton. A practical numerical method for large strain dynamic analysis of saturated soils is presented. The u–p formulation is used for the governing equations that describe the coupled problem in terms of soil skeleton displacement and excess pore pressure. A mixed finite element and finite difference scheme related to large strain analysis of saturated soils based on the updated Lagrangian method is given. The equilibrium equation of fluid-saturated soils is spatially discretized by the finite element method, whereas terms associated with excess pore pressure in the continuity equation are spatially discretized by the finite difference method. An effective cyclic elasto-plastic constitutive model is adopted to simulate the non-linear behavior of saturated soils under dynamic loading. Several numerical examples that include a saturated soil column and caisson-type quay wall are presented to verify the accuracy of the method and its usefulness and applicability to solutions of large strain liquefaction analysis of saturated soils in practical problems.     

Key factors affecting prediction of seismic pore water pressures in silty sands based on damage parameter

The paper provides insight into factors affecting the prediction of seismic pore-water pressure build up in clean sands and sand–silt mixtures for modeling purposes. Laboratory pore pressure measurements were conducted using stress-controlled undrained cyclic simple shear (CSS) tests carried out on both reconstituted and undisturbed specimens of silty sands under different initial conditions (density state, effective vertical stress, initial fabric and fines content). Test results were interpreted by using a damage concept-based model which is actually implemented for clean sands in non-linear time domain site response analysis codes. In the present work, such a model was properly modified for sands having fines contents higher than 35%. The general applicability of the modified procedure for predicting pore water pressure response of silty sands under irregular shear stress loading using data from stress-controlled CSS tests was also verified and all factors affecting calibration parameters of the model were throughly analyzed.     

Undrained deformation behavior of saturated soft clay under long-term cyclic loading

Subgrade soils of traffic infrastructures are subjected to large numbers of load applications at a stress level below their shear strength. It is therefore of great practical relevance to study the deformation behavior of soft clay under long-term cyclic loading. In this study, a series of monotonic triaxial tests and long-term cyclic (50,000 cycles) triaxial tests have been carried out to investigate the undrained deformation behavior of undisturbed soft clay from Wenzhou, China. The stress–strain hysteretic loop, resilient modulus and permanent strain of the tested samples were found significantly dependent on CSR and confining pressure. With an increase of CSR and confining pressure, the resilient modulus decreases more significantly with increasing number of cycles and the accumulation rate of permanent strain increases. Furthermore, the shape of the stress–strain hysteretic loop almost remains unchanged and the resilient modulus tends to a steady value after a large number of cycles. Based on the experimental results, two equations are established for the prediction of long-term resilient modulus and permanent strain. Finally, a new critical value of 0.65 is suggested for CSR. When CSR>0.65, the resilient modulus for large number of cycles is reduced to a so called “asymptotic stiffness” and the accumulation rate of permanent strain significantly increases.     

Modeling of strain dependency of shear modulus and damping of clayey sand

A series of cyclic triaxial tests on clayey sands was carried out and attempts were made to evaluate the strain dependency of shear modulus and damping. Strain dependencies of shear modulus and damping were simply modeled. It was shown that the change in the effective confining stress with loading cycles in the undrained shear test needed to be considered particularly in the large strain range. The consideration could be made by normalizing G with G′₀=AF(e)(σ′_m/σ_mr)ⁿ, the initial shear modulus for the effective confining stress of that particular loading cycle, instead of using G₀. G/G′₀ was expressed by a function of γ as G/G′₀=1/(1+b_gγ) which was almost stress level independent for clayey sands used in this study. The damping ratio was not much affected by the confining stress. The strain dependency of the damping ratio was modeled by h=a_hγ/(1+b_hγ). Effects of load irregularity on the shear modulus were also investigated. The excess pore pressure and the residual strain were generated especially when the major peaks in the irregular loading were applied to the specimen. However, G/G′₀ for the irregular loading could be represented reasonably well by the average curve for the uniform cyclic loading, if the excess pore water pressure and the residual strain were taken into account.     

Liquefaction potential and strain dependent dynamic properties of Kasai River sand

The availability of efficient numerical techniques and high speed computation facilities for carrying out the nonlinear dynamic analysis of soil-structure interaction problems and the analysis of ground response due to earthquake loading increase the demand for proper estimation of dynamic properties of soil at small strain as well as at large strain levels. Accurate evaluation of strain dependent dynamic properties of soil such as shear modulus and damping characteristics along with the liquefaction potential are the most important criteria for the assessments of geotechnical problems involving dynamic loading. In this paper the results of resonant column tests and undrained cyclic triaxial tests are presented for Kasai River sand. A new correlation for dynamic shear damping (D_s) and maximum dynamic shear modulus (G_max) are proposed for the sand at small strain. The proposed relationships and the observed experimental data match quite well. The proposed relationships are also compared with the published relationships for other sands. The liquefaction potential of the sand is estimated at different relative densities and the damping characteristics at large strain level is also reported. An attempt has been made to correlate the G_max with the cyclic strength of the soil and also with the deviator stress (at 1% strain) from static triaxial tests.