Dynamic effective shear strength of saturated sand

Abstract

The dynamic effective shear strength of saturated sand under cyclic loading is discussed in this paper. The discussion includes the transient time dependency behaviors based on the analysis of the results obtained in conventional cyclic triaxial tests and cyclic torsional shear triaxial tests. It has been found that the dynamic effective shear strength is composed of effective frictional resistance and viscous resistance, which are characterized by the strain rate dependent feature of strength magnitude, the coupling of consolidation stress with cyclic stress and the dependency of time needed to make the soil strength sufficiently mobilized, and can also be expressed by the extended Mohr-Coulomb's law. The two strength parameters of the dynamic effective internal frictional angle φd and the dynamic viscosity coefficient η are determined. The former is unvaried for different number of cyclic loading, dynamic stress form and consolidation stress ratio. And the later is unvaried for the different dynamic shear strain rate $$\dot \gamma _t $$ developed during the sand liquefaction, but increases with the increase of initial density of sand. The generalization of dynamic effective stress strength criterion in the 3-dimensional effective stress space is studied in detail for the purpose of its practical use.