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Liquefaction Susceptibility of Cohesionless Soils Under Monotonic Compression and Cyclic Simple Shear Loading at Drained/Undrained/Partially Drained Modes

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Abstract

Liquefaction susceptibility of cohesionless soils is influenced by various factors such as stress state, loading conditions, and shearing modes, and therefore, the implicit assumption of completely undrained shearing modes could pose damaging consequences. In the current research, the effect of stress state and shearing modes on liquefaction response of cohesionless soils was studied under monotonic compression and cyclic simple shear loading conditions. Undrained, drained, and partially drained shearing modes were applied on three different silty sands collected from three different locations of earthquake-prone region of Kutch. The partially drained shearing mode was applied at different effective stress ratios (ESRs) to simulate different stress states. All three silty sands exhibited undrained instability at large ESR values. The effect of cyclic stress ratio (CSR) on liquefaction response of cohesionless soils was also evaluated by conducting cyclic simple shear tests. Soil specimens from all the three locations exhibited liquefaction due to the generation of large excess pore water pressure of greater than 95% of the loss in effective stress. The number of cycles required to initiate liquefaction decreased and the rate of development of pore water pressure increased with the increase in the applied CSR under cyclic simple shear loading conditions.

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Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

A f :

Skempton’s pore pressure parameter at failure during shearing stage

B :

Skempton’s pore pressure parameter

CD:

Consolidated drained

CP:

Collapse potential

CU:

Consolidated undrained

CRR:

Cyclic resistance ratio

CSR:

Cyclic stress ratio

CSS:

Cyclic simple shear

DFE:

drained failure envelope

D :

Damping ratio

ESP:

Effective stress path

ESR:

Effective stress ratio

e :

Global void ratio

e o :

Initial void ratio

e s :

Intergranular void ratio

e f :

Interfine void ratio

GSD:

Grain size distribution

G :

Shear modulus

G 0 :

Shear modulus at the first loading cycle

I B :

Undrained brittleness index

IL:

Instability line

L p :

Liquefaction potential

p′:

Mean effective confining pressure

q :

Deviatoric stress

r u :

Excess pore pressure ratio

q max :

Peak of effective stress path

SM:

Silty sand

SA:

Strain amplitude

Δu :

Excess pore water pressure

σ c :

Confining pressure

σ ss :

Steady-state strength

σ dmax :

Peak deviatoric stress

σ vi :

Vertical overburden pressure

ψ :

State parameter

η IS :

Effective stress ratio of instability line

ε a :

Axial strain

ε v :

Volumetric strain

δ :

Cyclic degradation index

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Acknowledgements

Financial support from IIT Gandhinagar is gratefully acknowledged. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IIT Gandhinagar.

Funding

The research is funded by IIT Gandhinagar. IIT Gandhinagar has provided access to all the research facility and purchase of consumables and contingency for this research work. Stipend of MTech (SG) and PhD (MH) students were also funded by IIT Gandhinagar. Designing the research problem, performing experiments, data analysis, and writing of the paper have been solely the responsibility of the faculty member (AS), not the Institute (IIT Gandhinagar).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IIT Gandhinagar, Palaj, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, 382055, India

    Sheetal Gujrati, Majid Hussain & Ajanta Sachan

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  1. Sheetal Gujrati
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  2. Majid Hussain
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  3. Ajanta Sachan
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Contributions

SG: She has conducted all the experiments. She has also completed data analysis of all the cyclic simple shear and advanced triaxial tests including basic soil testing.

MH: He has trained/helped SG to conduct cyclic simple shear and advanced triaxial tests including final analysis of data.

AS: She has introduced these research ideas. She has helped in writing the paper and done review and editing this research work in all the phases of paper publishing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ajanta Sachan.

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Not applicable. This manuscript is based on experiments conducted on soil samples. This manuscript does not report on or involve the use of any animal or human data or tissue. This manuscript does not report any studies involving human participants, human data, or human tissue.

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Gujrati, S., Hussain, M. & Sachan, A. Liquefaction Susceptibility of Cohesionless Soils Under Monotonic Compression and Cyclic Simple Shear Loading at Drained/Undrained/Partially Drained Modes. Transp. Infrastruct. Geotech. 10, 391–423 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-022-00226-6

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