Liquefaction of silts and low plastic clays

Abstract

Liquefaction and related phenomenon have been responsible for many damages and newlineground failures all over the world. The ground consisting of saturated granular materials newlineof sand and sand with significant amounts of fines (non-plastic to low plastic nature) is newlinesusceptible to liquefaction. When the saturated soil mass is subjected to seismic or newlinedynamic loads, there is a rapid build-up of pore water pressure within a short duration. newlineIf the developed pore water pressure could not dissipate within the time, the soil mass newlinelosses its effective shear strength. At this state, it behaves like a liquid and progresses newlinetowards large deformations, settlements, flow failures, etc. In general, the soils newlinecontaining silty sands or low plastic soils are more liquefiable due to rapid build-up of newlineexcess pore pressures. Therefore, currently, research studies are focusing on newlineliquefaction susceptibility of different types of soils by varying the soil and testing newlineparameters. It also requires searching the mitigation measures to prevent the soil and newlinestructural failures, which occur due to soil liquefaction, during future earthquake events. newlineIn the present study, it is proposed to carry out the experimental and numerical newlineinvestigations to examine the undrained response of sand and fine-grained soil newlinemixtures. It is mainly aimed to investigate the effects of fines content and plasticity on newlineundrained response and liquefaction susceptibility of fine sand. In addition to that, the newlineinfluence of over-consolidation pressures and pre-cyclic loading has also examined on newlinethe improvement of liquefaction strength of various soil mixtures. In order to process newlinethe different types of soil mixtures, soil materials like fine sand, crushed stone powder, newlinekaolinite and natural clay were collected from various locations of Kerala state in India. newlineNon-plastic fines (PI=0) were derived after sieving the crushed stone through 75- newlinemicron IS sieve.