Liquefaction and post-liquefaction behaviour of a soft natural clayey soil

Abstract

The paper presents the results of identification, monotonous and cyclic triaxial tests on a potentially liquefiable soil from the Guadeloupe island. The material is a very soft clayey soil whose susceptibility to liquefaction is not clear when referring to index properties such as grain size distribution, plasticity, etc. The classifications found in the literature indicate that the material has rather a "clay-like" behaviour, i.e., is not very susceptible to liquefaction, but its properties are very close to the threshold values given by the authors. Cyclic triaxial tests carried out on the material under different conditions show that liquefaction is possible for a relatively important level of cyclic deviator or number of cycles. The second part of the paper is devoted to the study of the recovery of the soil after liquefaction and possibly reconsolidation. For the specimens tested without reconsolidation, that simulated the soil immediately after an earthquake, the recovery is nearly non-existent but the drop in pore pressure during extension results in a small available strength. On the contrary, after reconsolidation, the increase in strength of the liquefied specimens is quite large, compared to the initial state, but with unchanged failure envelopes.