The behavior of a compressible silty fine sand

Abstract

Publications associated with sands are often limited to clean (i.e., little fines content), uniform, uncemented silica or quartz sand. On the other hand, the importance of mineral content, particle shapes, as well as gradation to the behavior of sand has long been recognized. Although systematic studies of sands other than clean quartz sand have been limited, there is increasing attention being paid to sands with an appreciable fines content. Because of a major construction project, extensive field and laboratory experiments were performed on a silty fine sand from Mai-Liao, which is located on the central west coast of Taiwan. Results show that Mai-Liao Sand (MLS), a silty sand, can be significantly more compressible than clean quartz sand under static load. The particles of MLS have moderate strength, and significant crushing can be induced by triaxial shearing. As a result, MLS has low dilatancy and a relatively small range of peak friction angles. Cone penetration tests in MLS were conducted in a calibration chamber. Analyses of the data indicate that interpreting cone tip resistance in MLS using methods developed based on clean quartz sand without considering the differences of compressibility can be unrealistic. This paper documents results of the experimental studies on MLS.Key words: silty fine sand, strength, dilatancy, compressibility, crushing, in situ test.