Abstract
The soil in embankment dams and slopes may accumulate irreversible deformation due to water level variations. During this process, the soil skeleton experiences a constant deviatoric stress path, along with cyclic mean effective stress. In this work, triaxial drained tests were conducted on saturated sand under a low rate of strain to investigate the strain response along such stress paths, considering the influence of loading amplitude. The test results demonstrated that the volumetric strain of the saturated sand varied when the consolidation stress conditions were different. When the consolidation deviatoric stress was increased from 300 kPa to 900 kPa, the effect of cyclic load amplitude on the volumetric strain was strengthened, while the cumulative effect was weakened. The shear strain curves under different loading amplitudes were parallel to each other regardless of the consolidation stress condition. However, the cumulative shear strain showed great differences. The accumulation of shear strain was increased with the enhancement of loading amplitude. When the consolidation deviatoric stress was held constant at a low stress level, the effect of loading amplitude on volumetric strain was greater than that on shear strain. However, with the enhancement of stress level, the effect on shear strain was significantly enhanced.
Published Version
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