Numerical simulation of the undrained stability of slopes in anisotropic fine-grained soils

The undrained stability of slopes in anisotropic fine-grained soils is studied in this paper using the finite element method (FEM). A constitutive model is presented, able to account for the observed variation of undrained strength with loading direction. The model is able to encompass the different strength distributions observed in normally, slightly overconsolidated and heavily overconsolidated soils. A series of stability analyses have been performed to explore the effect of the type of undrained strength anisotropy on the stability and failure mechanisms of slopes of different inclinations. In addition, a real case study of the failure of an underwater slope is analysed with the numerical approach presented. It suggests that, by considering undrained strength anisotropy, the failure can be satisfactorily explained.     

Determination of undrained strength of fine-grained soils by means of SPT and its application in Turkey

The Standard Penetration Test (SPT) is one of the oldest and the most common in situ test used in soil explorations. In the recent years with the advent of new technology and techniques in determining the drawbacks in SPT, several researchers have attempted to correlate corrected field measured values with several soil properties. In this context, corrections applied to field values have become critical. In this study a questionnaire including the performance of the standard penetration test and equipment used in practice in Turkey is circulated in order to determine the relevant correction factors. Thus the appropriate corrections are used in acquiring corrected SPT-N values. The relationships between SPT-N and the undrained shear strength (S_u) are examined from the statistical point of view by taking the test types and SPT corrections into consideration, and comparison is made with previous studies. It is observed that SPT corrections play an important role on the obtained correlation equations. In addition, the importance of the effects of test types on the correlations is also emphasized. The Standard Penetration Test is found to be sufficient for reliable assessment of S_u.     

Moisture tension in fine-grained reconstituted soils at high initial water contents

Acta Geotechnica - The reclamation of land filled with high water content dredged clays is an important geological and geo-environmental issue. When designing such reclaimed land, the yield...     

用似水灰比对水泥土无侧限抗压强度的预测

对以连云港地区的海相软土为原料的水泥土进行了一系列物理、强度试验,分析了含水量、水泥用量和龄期对水泥土强度的影响,提出了似水灰比的概念用于水泥土强度的预测。采用提出的水泥土强度预测公式,根据某一似水灰比、龄期28 d某种的水泥土室内试验强度,可以预测不同含水量、不同水泥用量和不同龄期的水泥土室内试验强度。通过比较分析发现,得出水泥土强度预测公式可以很好地应用于其他研究者已经发表的水泥土试验数据,进一步验证了所提出的强度预测公式的有效性。     

Some investigations to quantify hysteresis associated with water retention behaviour of fine-grained soils

The soil water retention characteristics curve (SWRC) has been reported to be quite useful for estimation of unsaturated soil properties. However, the uniqueness of SWRC is questionable due to hysteresis associated with the drying- and wetting-path SWRCs and this poses great challenge in utilising the SWRC for reliable estimation of unsaturated soil properties. Although hysteresis associated with SWRCs has been extensively studied for coarse-grained soils, due to limited studies on wetting-path SWRC for fine-grained soils, the hysteresis for fine-grained soils is not well understood. The present work attempts to address this gap, by studying the drying- and wetting-path SWRCs for eight different fine-grained soils by employing Dew point Potentiameter (WP4C®), Environmental Chamber and Controlled Water Sprinkling method. The study employs the concept of ‘Suction Hysteresis’, ψ_h, for quantification of hysteresis. Further, the influence of various soil-specific properties on the variation of ψ_h-water content relationship (viz., slope of variation of suction hysteresis, S_ψh) has also been studied and demonstrated. The findings of the study are quite encouraging and it has been realised that extensive studies on soils of different characteristics would be quite useful in quantifying the variation of SWRC during drying and wetting cycles.     

滑带土强度特性的试验研究

滑带土的强度特性对于边坡稳定具有重要的控制作用,揭示滑带土强度指标的变化规律是进行边坡安全性评估的基本前提。针对一库岸古滑坡滑动带中的含粗粒细粒土,进行了滑带土强度特性的试验研究：通过现场大剪试验和室内固结快剪试验分析了滑带土的剪切性状,确定了再生强度、现场折减强度和固结快剪强度;根据现行反复剪切试验在确定含粗粒细粒土残余强度时的不足,对试验方法和试验仪器进行了改进,提出了滑带土的残余强度指标,并与其他剪切条件下的强度指标进行了比较;基于试验结果的统计分析,探讨了土体含水率、塑性指数及粗粒含量对剪切强度指标的影响,并总结了含粗粒细粒土与一般黏性土或砂土在剪切性状方面的诸多不同     

含水率对加筋膨胀土强度的影响

通过室内加筋三轴剪切试验,得出最优含水率附近两种不同含水率的加筋膨胀土的应力-应变关系曲线。分析试验曲线可知,相同含水率时试样的强度随着加筋层数、周围压力的增加而增大;同围压、同加筋层数的试样的含水率略微的减少,引起强度明显的增加,表明加筋膨胀土强度的水敏感性。     

Modelling of the effect of scale on the compressibility parameters of fine-grained soils

ABSTRACT

The effect of sample scale represents a challenge when obtaining engineering parameters in the laboratory compared to those obtained in the field. This study aimed at contributing to existing knowledge numerically using the finite element software PLAXIS 2D. The investigations were analysed in terms of height scale (HS) and diameter scale (DS) through a series of laboratory tests. Its effect on compressibility parameters such as coefficient of consolidation (c_v) was noted experimentally and showed that the sample scale greatly influences soil parameters most particularly at DS. The soil behaviour was found to be dependent on both DS and HS with a correlation factor of 0.650 and 0.062, respectively. The experimental data were validated in PLAXIS and a new proposed model was developed in PLAXIS 2D under the DS. The new proposed model developed was found to show no significant difference with the laboratory data.     

Continuous determination of drying-path SWRC of fine-grained soils

Establishing the soil water retention curve, SWRC or the soil water characteristic curve, SWCC, is very useful for determination of unsaturated properties of soils. However, it has been observed that SWRC of a soil is not unique and depends on various factors such as the initial moisture content, density of soil, method of compaction, soil fabric and the path (drying or wetting) adopted for establishing it. In this context, many techniques and instruments have been employed by earlier researchers for determination of the SWRC of soils. However, these techniques entail weighing of the samples during prolonged testing, manually, and hence yield discrete data points. In this situation, AquaSorp® Isotherm Generator (manufactured by Decagon Devices Inc., USA) has been found to be quite useful for continuous determination of the drying-path SWRC of fine-grained soils. This device has been primarily employed for food products, powders and amorphous materials. Hence, demonstration of the utility and limitations of this device for SWRC determination of fine-grained soils becomes essential. With this in mind, extensive studies were conducted on commercially available soils (Kaolinite and Bentonite) by employing this device. In order to understand the influence of specimen specific parameters on the obtained SWRCs, the molding water content and thickness of the specimens were varied and the results have been evaluated critically. Details of the methodology adopted for these investigations, and the findings of the study are presented in this technical note. Based on a critical comparison of the results obtained from this device with those obtained from the dewpoint potentiameter, WP4®, the utility of this device for continuous determination of drying-path SWRC of the soils has also been demonstrated.     

非饱和红粘土和膨胀土抗剪强度的比较研究

红粘土是对环境湿热变化敏感的塑性粘土,具有一般膨胀土吸水膨胀失水收缩的特性。与普通粘性土相比,红粘土与膨胀土的强度特性更为复杂。它既是土体抵抗剪切破坏能力的表征,也是计算路堑、渠道、路堤、土坝等斜坡稳定性以及支挡构筑物土压力的重要参数。通过试验研究讨论了红粘土与膨胀土的强度特性以及与一般粘性土的差别及其各种影响因素,并探讨了非饱和红粘土与膨胀土的抗剪强度指标与含水量之间的相关关系。试验结果表明,红粘土与一般膨胀土的吸水膨胀规律完全相同。其试验结果可为红粘土与膨胀土地区工程设计与建设提供参考依据。     

A novel technique for studying diffusion of contaminants in fine-grained soils

Diffusion is one of the predominant contaminant transport mechanisms in fine-grained soils. Usually, conventional methods such as half-cell and column tests are adopted for establishing diffusion characteristics of such soils. However, these techniques are destructive in nature, quite time-consuming, and require cumbersome chemical analysis of the soil and its pore-solution. Hence, development of a technique that would overcome these limitations and would yield precise results, in extremely short duration, becomes essential. With this in view, a modified Perspex diffusion cell with provision for inserting a series of stainless steel electrodes has been fabricated to monitor the diffusive contaminant transport, indirectly, based on the variation of electrical impedance of the soil. An LCR meter is employed to measure the electrical impedance of the soil across each electrode over a period. Further, the electrical impedance variation is indirectly correlated to the diffusion of contaminants that occurs in the soil. Details of the study and the test setup developed for this purpose are presented in this paper. It has been demonstrated that the technique based on electrical impedance measurement is quite useful and efficient for establishing diffusion characteristics of the fine-grained soil.     

A new versatile constitutive law for modelling the monotonic response of soft rocks and structured fine-grained soils

This paper deals with a new critical state–based constitutive model for soft rocks and fine-grained soils. The model, formulated in the single-surface plasticity framework, is characterised by the following main features: (i) a generalised three-invariant yield surface capable of reproducing a wide set of well-known criteria, (ii) the dependency of the elastic stiffness on the current stress state by means of a hyperelastic formulation, (iii) the ability of simulating the plastic strain–driven structure degradation processes by a set of appropriate isotropic hardening laws, and (iv) a nonassociate flow rule in the meridian plane. The adopted formulation is hierarchical, such that the various features of the model can be activated or excluded depending on the specific kind of geomaterial to be modelled and on the quality and quantity of the related available experimental results. The constitutive model was implemented in a commercial finite element code by means of an explicit modified Euler scheme with automatic substepping and error control. The procedure does not require any form of stress correction to prevent drift from the yield surface. The performance of the model is first analysed by means of a wide set of parametric analyses, in order to highlight the main features and to evaluate the sensitivity of the formulation with reference to the input parameters. The model is then adopted to simulate the experimental response observed on three different geomaterials, ranging from soft clays to soft rocks.     

Prediction of undrained shear strength using extreme gradient boosting and random forest based on Bayesian optimization

Accurate assessment of undrained shear strength(USS)for soft sensitive clays is a great concern in geotechnical engineering practice.This study applies novel data-driven extreme gradient boosting(XGBoost)and random forest(RF)ensemble learning methods for capturing the relationships between the USS and various basic soil parameters.Based on the soil data sets from TC304 database,a general approach is developed to predict the USS of soft clays using the two machine learning methods above,where five feature variables including the preconsolidation stress(PS),vertical effective stress(VES),liquid limit(LL),plastic limit(PL)and natural water content(W)are adopted.To reduce the dependence on the rule of thumb and inefficient brute-force search,the Bayesian optimization method is applied to determine the appropriate model hyper-parameters of both XGBoost and RF.The developed models are comprehensively compared with three comparison machine learning methods and two transformation models with respect to predictive accuracy and robustness under 5-fold cross-validation(CV).It is shown that XGBoost-based and RF-based methods outperform these approaches.Besides,the XGBoostbased model provides feature importance ranks,which makes it a promising tool in the prediction of geotechnical parameters and enhances the interpretability of model.     

非饱和土的抗剪强度与含水率关系的试验研究

研究非饱和土的抗剪强度及其随含水率的变化规律,对工程实践具有重要意义。在总结前人试验研究成果的基础上,以欠固结的第三系粉砂土为研究对象,对原状土和两种控制含水率方法的重塑土进行直剪试验,并与前人研究进行对比。研究结果表明,随着含水率的增加,土的抗剪强度降低,含水率对抗剪强度的影响主要是降低了土的黏聚力,对内摩擦角的影响较小。含水率与黏聚力之间的关系可以由两个直线段描述,第2直线段的斜率要大于第1直线段,当含水率增加到一定值时,土的黏聚力急剧下降。通过控制干密度,添加不同质量的水来改变土样含水率的重塑土方法,不仅改变了土样的含水率,还改变了土的压实度和颗粒结构,因此,土的抗剪强度的变化是含水率和压实度共同影响的结果,在分析试验结果时应该引起重视。     

K0固结软黏土的临界不排水强度研究

临界状态土力学中孔隙比-平均有效压力 坐标下 压缩线和临界状态线可以简化为平行的直线,倾斜的椭圆屈服面是能够考虑土体各向异性的数学表达最简单的屈服面形式。结合临界状态土力学理论和倾斜的椭圆屈服面方程,给出了轴对称和平面应变情况下 固结软黏土的临界不排水强度比的解析式,通过一些试验数据对这些解析式进行了验证,最后给出了便于工程应用的临界不排水强度比关于有效内摩擦角的简易表达式。     

Effect of cyclic loading on monotonic shear strength of fine-grained soils

In this study the effect of cyclic loads on monotonic shear strength has been studied on torsional apparatus. Tests have been conducted on both reconstituted and undisturbed fine-grained hollow soil specimens. The plasticity index of soils is in the range from 2 to 33 for reconstituted specimens, prepared by dry pluviation, and from 5 to 13 for undisturbed soil specimens. The existence of a critical shear strain level, called yield shear strain, where softening starts, is determined from cyclic tests. The level of cyclic yield strain is ± 0.75% for the reconstituted soil specimens and ± 0.5% for the undisturbed soils. If soil undergoes a cyclic shear strain level below the cyclic yield strain, reduction of monotonic strength of reconstituted and undisturbed specimens is limited, but when cyclic shear strain level is larger than yield strain monotonic strength decreases down to 40% of its initial strength.     

SBPT测定饱和黏土不排水强度的数值分析

自钻式旁压试验（SBPT）因其扰动小、测试深度大、可以获得应力-应变、超孔隙水压力-时间等数据,在确定地基土性参数和地基承载力上有广阔的应用前景。然而由于用以解释SBPT的柱孔扩张理论（Gibson解）所采用的平面应变假设与实际旁压腔几何特征存在差异,导致试验所确定的黏土不排水剪切强度su与其他原位试验或室内试验结果存在差别。针对旁压腔几何尺寸及应变区间的选择对确定su的影响,基于修正剑桥模型,采用低渗透系数控制加载过程中不排水条件,利用有限元法模拟SBPT,建议了不同应力历史下确定su的应变区间,并给出考虑几何尺寸影响时相应应变区间上su的修正系数。     

非饱和土抗剪强度理论的研究进展

非饱和土的工程性质是20世纪90年代以来国际岩土工程界研究的热点,非饱和土的抗剪强度是非饱和土的重要工程性质之一,在参阅了中、外文相关资料的基础上,总结了非饱和土抗剪强度理论的研究成果,提出了非饱和土抗剪强度有待进一步研究的问题。     

高填方地基不排水稳定性分析强度指标研究

目前国内工程界对高填方地基的排水稳定性关注较多,然而针对地下水位较高、排水性能较差的原状地基,由快速填筑引起的不排水稳定性问题更为突出。综述了现行规范中关于边坡不排水稳定性分析的相关条文及国内外常用方法。通过分析总应力摩擦角的应力路径相关性以及计算原状地基典型点位的总应力加载路径,解释了采用三轴固结不排水（consolidated-undrained,简称CU）总应力强度指标进行不排水分析,会高估高填方地基的不排水稳定性,该方法存在理论缺陷和工程隐患。以简单假想边坡模型和某高填方机场实际工程为算例,利用简化Bishop法,选用5种不排水分析指标或模型,分别计算其不排水稳定性安全系数。结果表明：CU总应力法会高估高填方地基的不排水稳定性;其余4种方法计算得到的不排水稳定性安全系数比较接近,相对适用。     

The residual shear strength of some Hellenic clayey soils

Summary A programme of residual shear strength testing has been undertaken on a number of Hellenic soil types: Marls, Clays and Flysch. The residual strength was determined using the Bromhead ring shear aparatus. For the applied normal stress range the residual strength envelope was straight and the resultant residual friction angle values are correlated with the index properties, such as Atterberg limits and grain-size distribution. The influence of mineralogy on the residual friction angle is also considered.