Experimental investigation on fluid characteristics of medium dense saturated fine sand in pre- and post-liquefaction

Abstract

Liquefaction of saturated loose sand is a major cause of extensive damage to buildings and infrastructures during large earthquakes. A better understanding of the behaviour of liquefied soil is becoming increasingly necessary to mitigate earthquake damage, and the fluid method has become an increasingly popular means to study the behaviour of liquefied soils. The purpose of this study is to determine the fluid characteristics of liquefied fine sand. In this paper, the apparent viscosity was measured as an index of fluid characteristics using the shaking table tests of pre-liquefaction behaviour of saturated fine sand at approximately 45 % relative density; the relationship of apparent viscosity and shear strain rate on liquefying fine sand was indicated as a power-law shear-thinning non-Newtonian fluid; and liquefying fine sand has the alternating behaviour of shear dilatancy and compressibility during cyclic loading. Additionally, a series of a monotonic axial compression loading tests in an undrained manner were performed to measure the shear stress and excess pore pressure ratio relationship on the post-liquefaction saturated fine sand at approximately 50 % relative density. The fluid characteristics of post-liquefaction fine sand exhibits rate dependence and can be described by a combined fluid model of time-independent and time-dependent power-law functions; the time-independent viscous resistance is not relevant to the excess pore pressure ratio; but the time-dependent frictional resistance is closely related to the excess pore pressure ratio. Furthermore, the results of the verification tests demonstrate that the proposed fluid model has good applicability for the fluid behaviour of the post-liquefaction fine sand.