Variation of Small-Strain Shear Modulus of Unsaturated Silt under Successive Cycles of Drying and Wetting
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 146, Issue 7
Abstract
A new framework is developed to extend an existing small-strain shear modulus model to determine of unsaturated silty soils along different paths of the soil water retention curve (SWRC) including the scanning loops. The suitability of the proposed framework is validated against experimental results of a series of bender-element tests performed in this study and data reported in literature. Measured values of showed a slight hysteresis in the measurements along the scanning curves of the SWRC, with lower values along the wetting scanning paths. However, results indicated that the value of was recovered once the main drying path was reached. Results of this study also indicated that behavior of the silty specimen along the scanning curves was stress dependent. The model was observed to follow the experimental data along different paths of the SWRC including scanning curves.
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Data Availability Statement
All data generated or used during the study including the small-strain shear modulus data, void ratio measurements, and SWRCs are available from the corresponding author by request.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 146 • Issue 7 • July 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 8, 2019
Accepted: Jan 24, 2020
Published online: Apr 25, 2020
Published in print: Jul 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Sep 25, 2020
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