Abstract

Excess pore pressure generation of uniform gravel and gravel-sand mixtures was evaluated in this study. Comparisons were made with existing relationships for pore pressure generation of sands and show that gravel and gravel-sand mixtures can exhibit different pore pressure responses. The influence of liquefaction definition, gravel particle angularity, particle size, relative density, initial vertical effective stress, cyclic stress ratio, and gravel percentage, on the generation of excess pore water pressure of gravel and gravel-sand mixtures was studied. Liquefaction definition, particle size, initial vertical effective stress, and cyclic stress ratio were found to not have a significant effect on the normalized excess pore pressure generation (i.e., ru versus N/NL). Conversely, relative density, particle angularity, and mixture percentage of gravels were found to have a more significant effect on the normalized excess pore pressure generation response (i.e., ru versus N/NL). Additionally, the coefficient of uniformity (Cu) was found to have a strong correlation with increased excess pore pressure generation ratio at values of N/NL less than 0.40, highlighting the influence of grain size distribution on early pore pressure generation response. A new pore pressure model was developed to predict ru based on Cu for gravelly soils.

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Data Availability Statement

All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Student Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE 1256260, by the National Science Foundation CAREER Grant No. 1351403, and by CMMI Grant No. 1663288. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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Go to Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 149Issue 2February 2023

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Received: Mar 7, 2021
Accepted: Aug 10, 2022
Published online: Dec 1, 2022
Published in print: Feb 1, 2023
Discussion open until: May 1, 2023

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Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villanova Univ., 800 Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085 (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0145-1036. Email: [email protected]
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 421 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3785-9009. Email: [email protected]
Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 425 Davis Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9907-3362. Email: [email protected]

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  • A Unified Model of Cyclic Shear–Volume Coupling and Excess Pore Water Pressure Generation for Sandy Soils under Various Cyclic Loading Patterns, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 10.1061/JGGEFK.GTENG-12247, 150, 9, (2024).
  • Simulation of the Seismic Response of a Man-Made Well-Graded Gravel as Recorded by a Vertical Instrumented Array, Geo-Congress 2024, 10.1061/9780784485316.015, (132-140), (2024).

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