Dilatancy and liquefaction behaviour of clean sand at wide range of confining stresses

Abstract

The state of clean sand was mainly dependent on its void ratio (density) and confining stress that greatly influenced the mechanical behavior (compression, dilatancy and liquefaction) of clean sand. Confirming whether the confining stress was a state variable of sand required precise element tests at different confining stress, especially the tests under very low confining stress whose test data were very limited. In this study, static-dynamic characteristics of clean sand was comprehensively investigated by a unified test program under low and normal confining stress ranging from 5 to 98 kPa, under monotonic/cyclic and drained/undrained conditions, together with the literature available data under confining stress of 1.0 to 3.0 MPa. For monotonic loading tests, the contraction/dilation phase transition was observed for loose sand at low confining stress, and dilatancy angles were stress-dependent. In addition, the liquefaction resistance was observed to increase with reducing of confining stress, and the axial strain varied from compressive to dilative when confining stress increased. Special attention was also paid to the enhancement effect of membrane, and it was observed that its influence on the test results was limited. In addition, the experimental results were proved reliable by reproducibility.

Keywords

void ratio / confining stress / monotonic/cyclic loading / drained/undrained triaxial test / state variable of sand

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