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Liquefaction triggering in silty sands: effects of non-plastic fines and mixture-packing conditions

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Abstract

During recent seismic events, such as 2010 Darfield and 2016 Ecuador earthquakes, widespread liquefaction has been observed in sand deposits with silt content. Nevertheless, the presence of non-plastic fines implies variable liquefaction resistance of sands. The goal of this research is the assessment of the influence of non-plastic fines and mixture-packing conditions on liquefaction triggering. A series of monotonic and cyclic consolidated undrained triaxial as well as resonant column tests is carried out on reconstituted soil specimens. The behavior of loose, medium and dense silty sands is analyzed, using different fine contents and confining pressures. The results show that the behavior of mixtures strongly depends on the packing configuration of coarse and fine particles. The experimental results are analyzed in terms of equivalent intergranular void ratio, which is identified in the literature as an adequate state parameter to characterize the global effect of fine particles. The estimation of the equivalent intergranular void ratio requires the determination of the active fine fraction b participating in the force transfer. An original formula is proposed for the parameter b based on packing configuration. The validation of the proposed formula is undertaken through comparisons with the present experimental results but also with results reported in the literature. The proposed expression to estimate the active fine fraction b allows a satisfactory prediction of liquefaction triggering in sand-fines mixtures independently from the fine content.

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Acknowledgements

This research is carried out in the framework of the French National Project “Characterizing and Improving SOiLs AgainsT liquEfaction” (ISOLATE, Projet-ANR-17-CE22-0009) funded by the French National Research Agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Gustave Eiffel, IFSTTAR (GERS/SRO), Marne la Vallée, France

    Stefania Gobbi, Philippe Reiffsteck & Luca Lenti

  2. Polytech’Lab, UPR 7498, Université Côte d’Azur, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Maria Paola Santisi d’Avila

  3. IMSIA (UMR9219), CNRS, EDF, CEA, ENSTA Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, Paris, France

    Jean-François Semblat

  4. Cerema, Equipe-Projet MOUVGS, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Luca Lenti

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Appendix

Appendix

See Figs.

Fig. 20
figure 20

Steady-state lines for the natural Camargue silty sand (Nguyen et al. [28]), using (a) the global void ratio and (b) the proposed equivalent intergranular void ratio

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Fig. 21
figure 21

Steady-state lines for M31 clean quartz sand and non-plastic silt from Assyros in Greece (Papadopoulou and Tika [32]), using (a) the global void ratio and (b) the proposed equivalent intergranular void ratio

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Fig. 22
figure 22

Steady-state lines for natural sand from the Egyptian desert and non-plastic silt from the area of Assirou in Greece (Stamatopoulos [40]), using (a) the global void ratio and (b) the proposed equivalent intergranular void ratio

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Fig. 23
figure 23

Cyclic stress ratio CSR15 for the Ottawa sand and Sil-Co-Sil silica by US Silica Co. (Carraro et al. [5]) with respect to (a) the global void ratio and (b) the proposed equivalent intergranular void ratio

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23 and

Fig. 24
figure 24

Cyclic stress ratio CSR15 for natural soil from Shinias-Marathon in Greece (Xenaki and Athanasopoulos [46]) with respect to (a) the global void ratio and (b) the proposed equivalent intergranular void ratio

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24.

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Gobbi, S., Reiffsteck, P., Lenti, L. et al. Liquefaction triggering in silty sands: effects of non-plastic fines and mixture-packing conditions. Acta Geotech. 17, 391–410 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-021-01262-1

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