Liquefaction resistance behaviours of gravel steel slag

Abstract

Due to the continuous scarcity of sand and gravel under environmental protection policies, a new geo-backfill material with the good liquefaction resistance is urgently needed. Steel slag is a kind of industrial solid waste. The aged eight-month steel slag usually could be used as backfill material. It is important to investigate the liquefaction resistance behaviours of steel slag. According to the soil classification method, the waste steel slag is also divided into gravel steel slag, coarse steel slag and fine steel slag. Dynamic triaxial tests were carried out to investigate the liquefaction resistance of gravel steel slag in the paper by considering the effects of consolidation stress ratio, loading frequency, confining pressure and gravel-size particle contents. The variations of pore water pressure and cyclic shear resistance were analysed. The calculation model of pore water pressure of saturated sand proposed by Seed and Finn could be applied to analyse the dynamic pore water pressure development of gravel steel slag. Compared with conventional soils, the cyclic liquefaction resistance of gravel steel slag is better than that of fine sand, gravel soil, sand-gravel soils and sand pebbles. Gravel steel slag can be used to replace some conventional cohesionless soils as a geo-backfill material.