Comparison of cyclic liquefaction behavior of clean and silty sands considering static shear effect

Abstract In practical engineering, liquefiable sand deposits in natural or manmade slopes, dams, and embankments may contain a certain amount of silty fines and often sustain a static shear prior to subsequent cyclic loading. To understand the effect of static shear stress on the cyclic liquefaction behavior of silty sand, a small amount of crushed fines was added to clean sand, and a series of triaxial tests considering a wide range of static and cyclic shear stress levels were performed. The results indicate that different stress conditions result in two liquefaction failure patterns for silty sand: cyclic mobility and residual deformation accumulation. A comparison of the liquefaction responses of silty and clean sands with the same relative density confirms that the former typically has a moderately higher cyclic resistance than the latter, which can be explained by the reinforced effect of fines on the soil skeleton. It is also demonstrated that the flow deformation type behavior accompanied by rapid development of pore pressure and severely degraded stiffness is more prominent in clean sand, which is responsible for the continuous decrease in its liquefaction resistance when the extensional static stress increases. Furthermore, a unique correlation of equivalent modulus versus cyclic strain amplitude is observed, which depends significantly on the static shear stress level but relatively insensitive to the addition of fines at least up to the considered fines content.