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Experimental Study of Undrained Shear Strength of Silty Sand: Effect of Fines and Gradation

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Abstract

Two strong earthquakes occurred in the region of Chlef (north western part of Algeria) during the last century. From the geological context, there were several great masses of sandy soil ejections on to the ground surface level and severe damages to civil and hydraulic structures. These damages were due to the soil liquefaction phenomenon. The objective of this laboratory investigation is to study the effect of low plastic fines and gradation characteristics on the undrained shear strength (liquefaction resistance) response of sand-silt mixture samples. For this purpose, a series of undrained monotonic triaxial tests were carried out on reconstituted saturated silty sand samples with different fines content ranging from 0 to 50 % at two initial relative densities (Dr = 20 and 91 %). The initial confining pressure was kept at 100 kPa. The evaluation of the data indicates that the undrained shear strength at the peak (qpeak) can be correlated to the undrained residual strength (Sus), the excess pore pressure (Δu), the fines content (Fc) and the intergranular void ratio (es). The test results indicate also that the undrained shear strength at the peak decreases with the increment of the coefficient of uniformity and fines content as well as with the decrement of the mean grain size in the range of 0–50 % fines content for both relative densities (Dr = 20 and 91 %).

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Abbreviations

Gs :

Specific gravity of the sand

Gf :

Specific gravity of the fines

G:

Specific gravity of the sand-silt mixture

FC :

Fines content

D10 :

Effective grain diameter

D50 :

Mean grain size of host sand

d50 :

Mean grain size of silt

Cu :

Coefficient of uniformity

Cc :

Coefficient of gradation

emax :

Maximum global void ratio

emin :

Minimum global void ratio

Ip :

Plasticity index

Dr :

Post consolidation relative density

e:

Post consolidation gross void ratio

es :

Intergranular void ratio at the end of consolidation

qpeak :

Undrained monotonic shear strength at the peak

Sus :

Undrained residual shear strength

Δu:

Excess pore water pressure

B:

Skempton’s pore pressure parameter

\( \sigma_{3}^{\prime } \) :

Initial confining pressure

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Materials Sciences and Environment, Hassiba Benbouali University of Chlef, BP 151 Route de Sendjes, 02000, Chlef, Algeria

    Mostefa Belkhatir, Ahmed Arab & Noureddine Della

  2. Laboratory of Foundation Engineering, Soil and Rock Mechanics, Bochum Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany

    Tom Schanz

Authors
  1. Mostefa Belkhatir
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  2. Ahmed Arab
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  3. Noureddine Della
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  4. Tom Schanz
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Correspondence to Mostefa Belkhatir.

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Belkhatir, M., Arab, A., Della, N. et al. Experimental Study of Undrained Shear Strength of Silty Sand: Effect of Fines and Gradation. Geotech Geol Eng 30, 1103–1118 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-012-9526-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-012-9526-1

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