Influences of particle size distribution and fines content on the excess pore water pressure generation of sand-silt mixtures under cyclic loading

Abstract

The mechanical behaviors of binary mixtures are different from that of uniform soils. However, experimental studies on the dynamic responses of sand-silt mixtures considering the combined effects of fines content (FC) and host sand gradation are limited in the literature. In this paper, an experimental program was designed concerning five binary mixtures with three grain size ratios (Rd) and three sand uniformity coefficients (Cus) for investigating the effects of fines content and host sand gradation on both the liquefaction resistance and the excess pore water pressure (EPWP) generation of sand-silt mixtures. Results show that the effect of FC on the liquefaction resistance of sand-silt mixtures depends on relative density (Dr), grain size ratio, and sand uniformity coefficient. The liquefaction resistance of sand-silt mixture can be uniquely characterized by the equivalent relative density Dr* regardless of FC, Dr, and host sand gradation. Relationship between the EPWP ratio Ru and the cycle ratio N/NL for the sand-silt mixtures can be well expressed by the Seed model, which is significantly affected by cyclic stress ratio (CSR), FC, and Dr but insensitive to the change of host sand gradation. A trained artificial neural networks (ANN) model is conducted to predict the fitting parameter β of the Seed model with a maximum difference of 25% between the predicted and measured values. Moreover, there is an arctangent relationship between Ru and shear strain amplitude γa of each specimen, and the fitting parameter A for the relationship is sensitive to the particle size distribution and stress amplitude. A unique relationship between a density-corrected parameter A/Dr* and CSR is proposed regardless of FC and host sand gradation.