Effect of fines on liquefaction resistance of sand

Abstract

To evaluate the effect of non-plastic fines on liquefaction resistance of Babolsar sand, a series of undrained static and cyclic triaxial tests alongside a series of numerical analysis were carried out. The cyclic triaxial tests were conducted in stress-controlled conditions with 1 Hz frequency at 0.35 constant cyclic stress ratio for 50 kPa and 0.25 for 100 and 200 kPa confining pressures. The samples contained 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% of fine grains. The numerical analysis was performed by a finite difference method, and Finn’s constitutive model was applied to investigate the liquefaction resistance of the mixtures. The tests’ results showed that the number of cycles leading to liquefaction of a sand–silt mixture decreases after increasing fine-grained percentage. Poorer performance in compression and better performance in tension was observed in this situation. The test outcomes also showed that dominant behavior of the mixtures changes from sand to silt at 20% fines content. It was observed from the test results and the numerical analysis that in low percentages of silt, the behavior of the sand–silt mixture is similar to those of the clean sand sample. But by increasing silt, the mixture’s behavior becomes more dependent on contacts between fine and granular particles. The concept presented by Thevanayagam was used to check the contacts between fine and coarse particles. It was also observed that the Finn constitutive model is in good consistency with the test results as long as the behavior of the sand is dominant in the mixture.