Undrained Seismic Compression of Unsaturated Sand
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 1
Abstract
Unsaturated soils in engineered geostructures like embankments or retaining walls may experience seismic compression during earthquakes due to particle rearrangement associated with large-strain cyclic shearing. Although previous studies have investigated volume changes during drained cyclic shearing of unsaturated soils, undrained cyclic shearing presents a more complex situation. During undrained cyclic shearing, changes in total volume, matric suction, degree of saturation, effective stress, shear modulus, and damping ratio may occur that have complex coupling effects that affect seismic compression. To better understand these coupling effects, this study performed a series of undrained cyclic simple shear tests on unsaturated sand specimens. Contractile volumetric strain after 200 cycles in these tests was found to vary nonlinearly with degree of saturation. The largest volumetric contraction occurred at a degree of saturation of 0.4 and coincided with the largest decrease in mean effective stress. The sand specimens followed a wetting-path scanning curve during shearing, with small changes in matric suction. The decrease in mean effective stress during cyclic shearing for all specimens followed the same linear relation with the accumulation of volumetric strain.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge partial financial support provided by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) in Project 65A0556 and provided by the University of California San Diego in Academic Senate Grant No. A050757.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 1 • January 2021
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© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 21, 2020
Accepted: Jul 31, 2020
Published online: Oct 19, 2020
Published in print: Jan 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Mar 19, 2021
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