Drained and Undrained Strength Interpretation for Low-Plasticity Silts
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 132, Issue 2
Abstract
The engineering behavior of low-plasticity silts is more difficult to characterize than is the behavior of clay or sand. Due to their tendency to dilate during shear, establishing a consistent and practically useful failure criterion for low-plasticity silts can be very difficult. Consideration of how the undrained shear strength of silt is related to changes in pore pressure provides a more useful and practical framework for understanding the undrained strengths of these materials and for characterizing undrained strengths for practical purposes. Using a value of Skempton’s as a failure criterion has been found to result in very reasonable values of undrained strength and to reduce scatter in the results as compared to using other criteria. Using a failure criterion based on an appropriate value of results in consistent values of , and tolerably small values of strain at failure. For low-plasticity, dilative silts that pose the greatest problems with respect to definition of “failure,” using as a failure criterion is an appropriate and simple choice.
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Acknowledgments
The research described in this paper was funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under Contract No. DACW39-89-M-2985. The project began in 1989, and the results presented in this paper were obtained from 1989 to 1994. The project director was Dr. Vic Torrey, who has since retired from the Corps of Engineers. Mr. Jeff Huffman assisted in the laboratory testing reported.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 132 • Issue 2 • February 2006
Pages: 250 - 257
Copyright
© 2006 ASCE.
History
Received: Mar 31, 2004
Accepted: Apr 18, 2005
Published online: Feb 1, 2006
Published in print: Feb 2006
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