Study of Variation of Soil Stress State Based on the Curve of Normalized Strain- Pore Water Pressure

The cyclic behavior of normally consolidated silty clays was investigated by conducting a series of cyclic simple shear tests on one-dimensionally and isotropically consolidated reconstituted samples. The critical cyclic stress ratio was obtained by the normalized axial strain. Based on hysteretic curve of pore water pressure versus strain, dynamic characteristics of silty clay were investigated. The results showed that with increasing of cyclic loading, soil stress state can be divided into steady state, critical state and failure state based on the critical cyclic stress ratio. The hysteresis curve of pore water pressure versus strain was divided into two parts by cross point A. Compared with two parts, the variation law was obtained. When the upper part area was bigger than the lower part area, pore water pressure and axial strain continuously increase with cycle number; when the upper part area was smaller than the lower part area, pore water pressure and axial strain tended to be steady with cycle number.

Experimental Study on Strength Weakening of Silty Soil of Subaqueous Yellow River Delta Under Cyclic Loadings

Silty soil seabed of Yellow River Delta is prone to sliding and liquefaction, which usually leads to geological hazards including landslides of seabed and failures of marine structures. The failure of silty soil is closely correlated with its strength change induced by wave actions. In this paper, silty soil samples of various clay contents were prepared, and cyclic triaxial experiments modeling wave actions were carried out on the samples to study the relationship between cyclic shear stress and number of cycles of silty soil taken from Subaqueous Yellow River Delta. Research results indicated that there existed a critical value in the cyclic stress exerting on the soil; the cyclic stress could cause failure of soil only when it’s value was higher than that of the critical stress; in this paper, critical cyclic stress ratio was defined as Kcr = ((σd+σ1)/σ3)cr, where Kcr is critical cyclic stress ratio, σd is axial pressure, σ1 is cyclic stress, σ3 is confining pressure. For the sake of the safety of design and construction of marine engineering structures, 1.30 was taken as the critical cyclic stress ratio of remolded silty soil in the Yellow River Delta, and 1.40 as that of the undisturbed silty soil. Also the results show that the dynamic strength weakening of silty soil followed the rule of power function attenuation. In addition, cyclic loading vibration experiments in a soil tank were carried out to study the weakening law of shear strength and penetration resistance with the variation of oscillation times.