Abstract
This paper presents an experimental study on small strain shear modulus (G0) of saturated sand specimens using both resonant column and bender element tests, with the aim to explore the impact of testing method. Besides clean sand specimens, non-plastic fines of varying percentage were also added to sand in the experiments in order to investigate the possible interplay of fines with the testing method. It was found that, under otherwise similar conditions, the bender element test may yield significantly greater G0 values than the resonant column test and this observation is not affected by the fines content. A hypothesis is proposed for the observed effects of testing method, which attributes the discrepancy to the isotropic/anisotropic properties of sand. The study suggests that cautions should be exerted in examining G0 of sand obtained from different test methods.
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