Effect of Cyclic Loading Frequency on Dynamic Properties of Marine Clay

A study of the effect of cyclic loading frequency on the dynamic properties of saturated soft marine clay was presented. The research was based on a series of stress-controlled undrained one-way loading cyclic triaxial tests conducted on normally consolidate undisturbed Tianjin soft marine clay. It is found that accumulative axial strain and normalized average pore pressure with number of cycles are strongly affected by cyclic frequency, but the effect of frequency on normalized average pore pressure with accumulative axial strain is not significant, and the frequency is also a less important factor that affects degradation index with number of cycles. Accumulative axial strain, normalized average pore pressure and degradation index with number of cycles were successfully modeled by hyperbolic line, while normalized average pore pressure with accumulative axial strain can be modeled by Hill growth line. These models can be used to estimate the dynamic properties of soft clay under cyclic load reasonably.