Critical cyclic stress ratio of undisturbed saturated soft clay in the yangtze estuary under complex stress conditions

Abstract

There exists a critical cyclic stress ratio when sand or clay is subjected to cyclic loading. It is an index distinguishing stable state or failure state. The soil static and dynamic universal triaxial and torsional shear apparatus developed by Dalian University of Technology in China was employed to perform different types of tests on saturated soft marine clay in the Yangtze estuary. Undisturbed samples were subjected to undrained cyclic vertical and torsional coupling shear and cyclic torsional shear after three-directional anisotropic consolidation with different initial consolidation parameters. The effects of initial orientation angle of major principal stress, initial ratio of deviatoric stress, initial coefficient of intermediate principal stress and stress mode of cyclic shear on the critical cyclic stress ratio were investigated. It is found that the critical cyclic stress ratio decreases significantly with increasing initial orientation angle of major principal stress and initial ratio of deviatoric stress. Compared with the effects of the initial orientation angle of major principal stress and initial ratio of deviatoric stress, the effect of initial coefficient of intermediate principal stress is less evident. Under the same consolidation condition, the critical cyclic stress ratio from the cyclic coupling shear test is lower than that from the cyclic torsional shear test, indicating that the stress mode of cyclic shear has an obvious effect on the critical cyclic stress ratio. The main reason is that the continuous rotation in principal stress directions during cyclic coupling shear damages the original structure of soil more than the cyclic torsional shear does.