Post-failure mobility of saturated sands in undrained load-controlled ring shear tests

2002 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-837 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonghui Wang ◽  
Kyoji Sassa

The undrained shear behavior of soils with progress of shear displacement is essential to the understanding of liquefied slope failures with long travel distance. In this paper, using a newly developed ring shear apparatus, a series of ring-shear tests were conducted on a silty sand to examine the undrained behavior of sand subjected to long shear displacement. Based on the test results, the undrained shear behavior of sands with a wide range of densities is discussed. A very low effective stress corresponding to liquefaction was observed at the steady state in all of the tests on loose, medium, as well as dense sand. The effects of stress state and shear history on the undrained shear behavior were examined by performing tests on a sample with different initial stress states and shearing the same specimen repeatedly (three times) at each initial stress state. The tests at different initial stress states proved that the initial stress state has an influence on static liquefaction resistance but has no effect on the steady-state shear strength. Repeated shear tests on the same specimen showed that with increasing shear times, both the peak shear strength and the steady-state shear strength for each specimen became greater. Detailed examination of the shear deformation revealed that the liquefaction phenomena in ring shear tests are localized in the shear zone, irrespective of the initial state of the sand. Grain crushing within the shear zone was examined. Finally, it was found that there was an optimal density at which the undrained brittleness index had a minimum value; meanwhile, the undrained brittleness index became greater with increasing initial normal and shear stresses, but decreased with shear times. These findings offer some basic understanding in assessing the postfailure mobility in landslides.Key words: excess pore pressure, localized liquefaction, shear resistance, ring-shear tests, grain crushing, silty sands.

2005 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 229-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurelian Catalin Trandafir ◽  
Kyoji Sassa

This paper is concerned with an analysis of the seismic performance of infinite slopes in undrained conditions. The material assumed on the sliding surface is a loose saturated sand susceptible to a gradual loss in undrained shear strength after failure with the progress of unidirectional shear displacement. The undrained monotonic and cyclic shear behavior of this sand was investigated through an experimental study based on ring shear tests, with initial stresses corresponding to the static conditions on the sliding surface of the analyzed slopes. These tests provide the experimental framework for a modified sliding block method to estimate the earthquake-induced undrained shear displacements for conditions of no shear stress reversals on the sliding surface. The proposed estimation procedure incorporates the shearing resistance obtained from undrained monotonic ring shear tests to approximate the undrained yield resistance at a certain displacement during an earthquake. The term catastrophic failure is used in this study to define the accelerated motion of a potential sliding soil mass due to the static driving shear stress exceeding the reduced undrained yield resistance of the soil on the shear surface. The critical displacement necessary to trigger a catastrophic failure on the shear surface under seismic conditions was derived based on the shear resistance – shear displacement curve obtained under monotonic loading conditions. Using the shear resistance – shear displacement data from undrained monotonic ring shear tests and several processed horizontal earthquake accelerograms, the minimum peak earthquake acceleration necessary to cause a catastrophic shear failure under various seismic waveforms was estimated for conditions of no shear stress reversals on the sliding surface.Key words: earthquakes, slopes, critical shear displacement, sand, ring shear tests, undrained shear strength.


2019 ◽  
Vol 254 ◽  
pp. 34-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chong Ma ◽  
Hongbin Zhan ◽  
Tao Zhang ◽  
Wenmin Yao

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baoqin Lian ◽  
Jianbing Peng ◽  
Qiangbing Huang

Abstract. Residual shear strength of soils is an important soil parameter for assessing the stability of landslides. To investigate the effect of the shear rate on the residual shear strength of loessic soils, a series of ring shear tests were carried out on loess from three landslides at two shear rates (0.1 mm/min and 1 mm/min). Naturally drained ring shear tests results showed that the shear displacement to achieve the residual stage for specimens with higher shear rate was greater than that of the lower rate; both the peak and residual friction coefficient became smaller with increase of shear rate for each sample; at two shear rates, the residual friction coefficients for all specimens under the lower normal stress were greater than that under the higher normal stress. The tests results revealed that the difference in the residual friction angle фr at the two shear rates, фr (1)–фr (0.1), under each normal stress level were either positive or negative values. However, the difference фr(1)–фr (0.1) under all normal stresses was negative, which indicates that the residual shear parameters reduced with the increasing of the shear rate in loess area. Such negative shear rate effect on loess could be attributed to a greater ability of clay particles in specimen to restore broken bonds at low shear rates.


2019 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weina Yuan ◽  
Wen Fan ◽  
Chengcheng Jiang ◽  
Xianglin Peng

Geofluids ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jianquan Ma ◽  
Xiaojie Zhao ◽  
Shibo Li ◽  
Zhao Duan

The shear behavior of saturated loess was examined by performing a series of ring shear tests with different shearing rates. The effects of shearing rates on the shear behavior of saturated loess with different normal stress are presented and discussed. The results showed that peak shear strength and steady-state shear strength were greater when the shearing rate was low and vice versa. Compared with high and low shearing rates, the maximum strength reduction ratios of peak shear strength and steady-state shear strength were 34.2% and 37.2%, respectively. The axial displacement during shearing was measured and was found to increase with increasing shear displacement in all tests. A comparison of sample height reduction (when the shear rate was stopped) found that the low shearing rate test sample underwent a much greater reduction than the high shearing rate test sample; however, the variation reduction range was within 4 mm. Monitoring the pore-water pressure during the shearing process revealed that it increased with shear displacement, and a higher excess pore-water pressure was generated within the shear zone during the fast-shearing process. Comparing the particle size distribution of the samples after the test and the original sample showed that the particles were crushed during the shearing process. The percentage that was finer than 0.005 mm increased with shearing rates and normal stress, and the soil structure implosion became more pronounced with increasing normal stress.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (15) ◽  
pp. 2977 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sueng-Won Jeong ◽  
Sung-Sik Park

Surface roughness plays an important role in estimating the shear strength of granular materials. A series of ring shear tests with different surface roughnesses (i.e., smooth and rough surfaces) were performed. A large-sized ring shear device, which is applicable for fine- and coarse-grained sediments, was developed to examine the shear strength of large particle sizes (i.e., commercial gravels with a mean grain size of 6 mm). In terms of surface roughness, the drainage- and shear-velocity-dependent shear strengths of the granular materials were examined. In this study, different shear velocities of 0.1, 0.5, and 1 mm/s were applied under drained and undrained conditions. The test results clearly show that shear stress is affected by drainage, shear velocity, and surface roughness. In particular, a typical strain-hardening behavior is exhibited regardless of the drainage and shear velocity condition. The measured shear strength obtained from both drained and undrained conditions increased with increasing shear velocity. All tests showed a large fragmentation using rough surfaces compared to the smooth surfaces of the device. The grain crushing was significant during shearing, even when normal stress was not applied. For a given shear velocity, surface roughness is an important feature in determining the shear strength of granular materials.


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