Stiffness of Clays and Silts: Modeling Considerations
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 6
Abstract
A large database has recently been published that details the development of new empirical expressions for the stiffness reduction with strain of clays and silts. In this note, the same database is used to examine two major considerations for engineers using these expressions in numerical analyses: the transformation from secant to tangent stiffness and the effect of stress history.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and Ove Arup and Partners for financial support to the first author during his doctoral studies. The authors also thank the editors and reviewers for their helpful suggestions and comments.
References
Anderson, D. G., and Richart, F. E. (1976). “Effect of straining on shear modulus of clays.” J. Geotech. Engrg. Div., 102(9), 975–987.
Atkinson, J. H. (2000). “Non-linear soil stiffness in routine design.” Geotechnique, 50(5), 487–508.
Bishop, A. W., Webb, D. L., and Lewin, P. I. (1965). “Undisturbed samples of London clay from the Ashford common shaft: Strength-effective stress relationships.” Geotechnique, 15(1), 1–31.
British Standards Institution. (1999). “Code of practice for site investigations.” BSI BS5930, London.
Burland, J. B. (1989). “Ninth Laurits Bjerrum memorial lecture: ‘Small is beautiful’—the stiffness of soils at small strains.” Can. Geotech. J., 26(4), 499–516.
Casagrande, A. (1947). “Classification and identification of soils.” Proc. Am. Soc. Civ. Eng., 73(6), 783–810.
Chandler, R. J. (2000). “Clay sediments in depositional basin: The geotechnical cycle.” Quart. J. Eng. Geol. Hydrogeol., 33(1), 7–39.
Darendeli, M. B. (2001). “Development of a new family of normalized modulus reduction and material damping curves.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX.
Doroudian, M., and Vucetic, M. (1999). “Results of geotechnical laboratory tests on soil samples from the UC Santa Barbara campus.” UCLA Research Rep. No. ENG-99-203, Civil and Environmental Engineering Dept., Univ. of California, Los Angeles.
Fahey, M. (1992). “Shear modulus of cohesionless soil: Variation with strain and stress level.” Can. Geotech. J., 29(1), 157–161.
Fahey, M., and Carter, J. P. (1993). “A finite element study of the pressuremeter test in sand using a non-linear elastic plastic model.” Can. Geotech. J., 30(2), 348–362.
Gasparre, A. (2005). “Advanced laboratory characterisation of London clay.” Ph.D. thesis, Imperial College, London.
Gasparre, A., Nishimura, S., Minh, N. A., Coop, M. R., and Jardine, R. J. (2007). “The stiffness of natural London clay.” Geotechnique, 57(1), 33–47.
Georgiannou, V. N., Rampello, S., and Silvestri, F. (1991). “Static and dynamic measurements of undrained stiffness on natural overconsolidated clays.” Proc., 10th European Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 91–95.
Hardin, B. O., and Drnevich, V. P. (1972a). “Shear modulus and damping in soils: Design equations and curves.” J. Soil Mech. Found. Div., 98(7), 667–692.
Hardin, B. O., and Drnevich, V. P. (1972b). “Shear modulus and damping in soils: Measurement and parameter effects.” J. Soil Mech. Found. Div., 98(6), 603–624.
Hardin, B. O., and Kalinski, M. E. (2005). “Estimating the shear modulus of gravelly soils.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 867–875.
Hight, D. W., Gasparre, A., Nishimura, S., Minh, N. A., Jardine, R. J., and Coop, M. R. (2007). “Characteristics of the London clay from the Terminal 5 site at Heathrow Airport.” Geotechnique, 57(1), 3–18.
Howard, A. K. (1984). “The revised ASTM standard on the Unified Classification System.” J. ASTM Geotech Test., 7(4), 216–222.
Jardine, R. J. (1992). “Some observations on the kinematic nature of soil stiffness.” Soils Found., 32(2), 111–124.
Kim, T. C., and Novak, M. (1981). “Dynamic properties of some cohesive soils of Ontario.” Can. Geotech. J., 18(3), 371–389.
Kondner, R. L. (1963). “Hyperbolic stress-strain response: Cohesive soils.” J. Soil Mech. and Found. Div., 89(1), 115–143.
Oztoprak, S., and Bolton, M. D. (2013). “Stiffness of sands through a laboratory test database.” Geotechnique, 63(1), 54–70.
Rampello, S., and Silvestri, F. (1993). “The stress-strain behaviour of natural and reconstituted samples of two overconsolidated clays.” Geotechnical Engineering of Hard Soils-Soft Rocks, A. Anagostopoulos, F. Schlosser, N. Kalteziotis, and R. Frank, eds., A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 769–778.
Richardson, A. M., and Whitman, R. V. (1963). “Effect of strain-rate upon undrained shear resistance of a saturated remoulded fat clay.” Geotechnique, 13(4), 310–324.
Sambhamdharaksa, S., Aimdee, W., and Kurojjanawry, Y. (2003). “The effects of total stress paths direction on stress-strain-strength characterisation of soft Bangkok clay.” Proc., 3rd Int. Symp., Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials, H. Di Benedetto, T. Doanh, H. Geoffroy, and C. Sauzéat, eds., A. A. Balkema/Swets and Zeitlinger, Lisse, Netherlands.
Shibuya, S., and Mitachi, T. (1994). “Small strain modulus of clay sedimentation in a state of normal consolidation.” Soils Found., 34(4), 67–77.
Smith, P. R., Jardine, R. J., and Hight, D. W. (1992). “The yielding of Bothkennar clay.” Geotechnique, 42(2), 257–274.
Soga, K. (1994). “Mechanical behaviour and constitutive modelling of natural structured soils.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.
Stokoe, K. H., II, Darendeli, M. B., Andrus, R. D., and Brown, L. T. (1999). “Dynamic soil properties: Laboratory, field and correlation studies.” Proc., 2nd Int. Conf. on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering, P. Sêco e Pinto, ed., Vol. 3, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 811–845.
Stokoe, K. H., II, Hwang, S. K., Lee, J. N.-K., and Andrus, R. D. (1994). “Effects of various parameters on the stiffness and damping of soils at small to medium strains.” Proc., Int. Symp., Pre-failure Deformation Characteristics of Geomaterials, S. Shibuya, T. Mitachi, and S. Miura, eds., Vol. 1, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 785–816.
Tanaka, H., Locat, J., Shibuya, S., Soon, T. T., and Shiwakoti, D. R. (2001). “Characterization of Singapore, Bangkok and Ariake clays.” Can. Geotech. J., 38(2), 378–400.
Teachavorasinskun, S., Thongchim, P., and Lukkunaprasit, P. (2002). “Shear modulus and damping of soft Bangkok clays.” Can. Geotech. J., 39(5), 1201–1208.
Vardanega, P. J., and Bolton, M. D. (2013). “Stiffness of clays and silts: Normalizing shear modulus and shear strain.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1575–1589.
Vardanega, P. J., Lau, B. H., Lam, S. Y., Haigh, S. K., Madabhushi, S. P. G., and Bolton, M. D. (2012). “Laboratory measurement of strength mobilization in kaolin: Link to stress history.” Géotech. Lett. 2(1), 9–15.
Vucetic, M., and Dobry, R. (1991). “Effect of soil plasticity on cyclic response.” J. Geotech. Engrg., 89–117.
Wichtmann, T., and Triantafyllidis, T. (2013a). “Effect of uniformity coefficient on and damping ratio of uniform to well-graded quartz sands.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 59–72.
Wichtmann, T., and Triantafyllidis, T. (2013b). “Stiffness and damping of clean quartz sand with various grain-size distribution curves.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 06013003.
Yimsiri, S. (2001). “Pre-failure deformation characteristics of soils: Anisotropy and soil fabric.” Ph.D. thesis, Univ. of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 6 • June 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 7, 2013
Accepted: Jan 31, 2014
Published online: Mar 14, 2014
Published in print: Jun 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Aug 14, 2014
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.