Dynamic strength characteristics and failure criteria of anisotropically consolidated silt under principal stress rotation

Abstract

In order to identify the critical properties and failure criteria of in-situ silt under vehicle or wave loading, anisotropically consolidated silt under undrained cyclic principal stress rotation was studied with hollow cylinder dynamic tests. The results show that for the slightly anisotropically consolidated samples with consolidation ratios no larger than 1.5, the structure collapses and the deviator strain and pore pressure increase sharply to fail after collapse. For the highly anisotropically consolidated samples with consolidation ratios larger than 1.5, the strain increases steadily to high values, which shows characteristics of ductile failure. 4% is suggested to be the threshold value of deviator stain to determine the occurrence of collapse. The normalized relationship between pore pressure and deviator strain can be correlated by a power function for all the anisotropically consolidated samples. Based on it, for the highly anisotropically consolidated samples, the appearance of inflection point on the power function curve is suggested to sign the failure. It can be predicted through the convex pore pressure at this point, whose ratio to the ultimate pore pressure is around linear with the consolidation ratio in spite of the dynamic shear stress level. And the corresponding deviator strain is between 3% and 6%. The strain failure criterion can also be adopted, but the limited value of stain should be determined according to engineering practice. As for the slightly anisotropically consolidated samples, the turning points appear after collapse. So, the failure is suggested to be defined with the occurrence of collapse and the collapse pore pressure can be predicted with the ultimate pore pressure and consolidation ratio.