Effect of Initial Consolidation Condition on Postcyclic Undrained Monotonic Shear Behavior of Mississippi River Valley Silt
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 2
Abstract
The postcyclic undrained monotonic shear behavior of Mississippi River Valley (MRV) silt is investigated by carrying out triaxial tests under various initial consolidation conditions. Results show that the variation of cyclic shear strength of MRV silt against initial overconsolidation ratio (OCR) and mean effective consolidation pressure () was consistent with previous studies, i.e., it increased with both increase in OCR and decrease in . The cyclic stress ratio (CSR) had no apparent effect on postcyclic shear behavior for MRV silt. At higher OCRs, the postcyclic reconsolidation behavior was more similar to recompression. Unlike the specimens not previously subjected to cyclic loading, the initial OCR did not influence effective stress path of the postcyclic reconsolidated specimens at the early stages of shearing. The normalized undrained shear strength () of MRV silt reconsolidated after cyclic loading increased with OCR. Stress-strain curves of MRV silt reconsolidated after cyclic loading can be normalized by as those of the specimens not previously subjected to cyclic loading. Without reconsolidation, the liquefied specimens tend to dilate at the early stage of postcyclic undrained monotonic shearing phase. The undrained shear strength of the specimens not reconsolidated after cyclic loading did not approach to zero, and it increased with an increase in OCR. The undrained shear strength of postcyclic MRV silt can be predicted based on the equation . However, cyclic loading changes the critical state line (CSL) of MRV silt, and the prediction will be better if the state parameter is computed based on the postcyclic CSL.
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Acknowledgments
The financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51208516) and Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (2014M550424, 2015T80887) is acknowledged and appreciated. The authors are grateful to the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology for the excellent facilities used for this research. Additionally, the reviewers of this paper provided insight and improved the quality of the manuscript and are hereby gratefully acknowledged.
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jun 19, 2014
Accepted: Jul 13, 2015
Published online: Aug 28, 2015
Discussion open until: Jan 28, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
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