Abstract
Dynamic properties for unsaturated soil are of significant importance for analysing unsaturated soil behaviour for variety of geotechnical design applications. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the small-strain stiffness of unsaturated soil. Bender elements were used to excite and receive shear waves in controlled unsaturated conditions to determine shear wave velocity and corresponding small-strain stiffness. A special cell was designed and produced to control two stress state variables, the net confining pressure and the matric suction and with installed bender elements. The specimen starts at full saturation then it dries gradually while matric suction increases. In each test, the net stress was kept constant whereas the matric suction increases. In the meanwhile, time histories of shear waves were saved for each matric suction step. The objective of all measurements is the identification of the velocity/small-strain-stiffness dependency of the matric suction and saturation level.
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Asslan, M., Wuttke, F. (2012). Wave Velocity Change and Small-Strain Stiffness in Unsaturated Soils: Experimental Investigation. In: Mancuso, C., Jommi, C., D’Onza, F. (eds) Unsaturated Soils: Research and Applications. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31116-1_48
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31116-1_48
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