scholarly journals Rate Effects on Peak and Residual Strengths of Overconsolidated Clay in Ring Shear Tests

Author(s):  
Nguyen Thanh Duong ◽  
Motoyuki Suzuki

Overconsolidated (OC) clay soil is widely distributed in landslide slopes. This soil is often fissured, jointed, contains slickensides, and is prone to sliding. Thus, the shear strength behavior of OC clayey soil is complicated and has received much attention in the literature and in practice in terms of evaluating and predicting landslide stability. However, the behavior of the shear strength of OC clayey soil at different shear rates, as seen in ring shear tests, is still only understood to a limited extent and should be examined further, especially in terms of the residual strength characteristics. In this study, a number of ring shear tests were conducted on kaolin clay at overconsolidation ratios (OCRs) ranging from 1 to 6 under different shear displacement rates in the wide range of 0.02 mm/min to 20.0 mm/min to investigate the shear behavior and rate dependency of the shear strength of OC clay. Variations in the cohesion and friction angles of OC clay under different shear rates were also examined. The results indicated that the rate effects on the peak strength of OC and normally consolidated (NC) clays are opposite at fast shear displacement rates. At the residual state, as with NC clay, the positive rate effect on the residual strength is also exhibited in OC clay, but at a lower magnitude. Regarding the shear strength parameters, the variations in the cohesion and friction angles of OC clay at different shear rates were found to be different at peak and residual states.

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2843-2856
Author(s):  
Baoqin Lian ◽  
Xingang Wang ◽  
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 naturally drained ring shear tests were carried out on loess from three landslides at two shear rates (0.1 and 1 mm min−1). Experimental 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 in shear rate for each sample; at two shear rates, the residual friction coefficients for all specimens under the lower normal stress were greater than those under the higher normal stress. Moreover, specimens with almost the same low fraction of clay (CF) showed a similar shear rate effect on the residual friction coefficient, with normal stress increasing, whereas specimens with high CF (24 %) showed a contrasting tendency, indicating that such an effect is closely associated with CF. The test results revealed that the difference in the residual friction angle ϕr at the two shear rates, ϕr(1)−ϕr(0.1) under each normal stress level are either positive or negative values, of which the maximum magnitude is about 0.8∘. However, the difference ϕr(1)−ϕr(0.1) determined under all normal stress levels was negative, which indicates that the residual shear parameters reduced with the increasing of the shear rate in the loess area. Such a negative shear rate effect on loess could be attributed to a greater ability of clay particles in specimens to restore broken bonds at low shear rates.


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.


2003 ◽  
pp. 223-228
Author(s):  
Naoki SAKAI ◽  
Hirofumi TOYOTA ◽  
Kouichi NAKAMURA ◽  
Mitsutaka SUGIMOTO

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.


Landslides ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ogbonnaya Igwe ◽  
Kyoji Sassa ◽  
Fawu Wang

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.


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