Cyclic volumetric strain accumulation for sand under drained simple shear condition: Fid-Bau Portal

Cyclic volumetric strain accumulation for sand under drained simple shear condition

WU, Ze-Xiang / YIN, Zhen-Yu / DANO, Christophe / HICHER, Pierre-Yves

Highlights • The stress-controlled drained simple shear tests, with 5000 cycles on Fontainebleau sand are carried out and presented. • The initial void ratio, normal stress, cyclic shear stress ratio and average shear stress ratio significantly affect the accumulation of volumetric strain. • The analytical model of volumetric strain accumulation is developed considering the different initial conditions.

Abstract Volumetric strain of a soil element surrounding the pile accumulated under the drained cyclic loading condition is one of major concerns in geotechnical engineering design. In this paper, twenty stress-controlled drained simple shear tests, with 5000 cycles on Fontainebleau sand have been carried out, which aims to investigate four factors influencing cyclic accumulation behaviour: initial void ratio, normal stress, cyclic shear stress ratio and average shear stress ratio. Based on results, the cyclic volumetric strain accumulation for each influencing factor is summarized, which is found highly sensitive to the cyclic shear stress ratio that a bigger magnitude (more than 0.2) leads to a larger degree of densification. In addition, a simple analytical model is then proposed accounting for these factors with seven parameters that can be directly calibrated from laboratory tests. Finally, the applicability of the model is examined by simulating the additional tests through an adoption of the parameters calibrated by the training tests.