Soil Properties - II

Amit Prashant
Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

Short Course on
Geotechnical Aspects of Earthquake Engineering
04 – 08 March, 2013

Seismic Waves

Earthquake Near the ground

surface, most of
the seismic waves
Rock arrive vertically

1
Important Properties
 Propagation of Shear Waves
 Density = Mass per unit volume

 Shear Modulus

 Damping Characteristics

Shear Stress
Shear Modulus 
Shear Strain
Useful in Equivalent Linear Analysis Secant
Shear Modulus
Initial Shear Gsec
Modulus 1 1
Gtan
Go
Shear Stress,  1
Tangent
Shear Modulus

Used in Nonlinear Analysis

Shear Strain, 

2
 Secant Modulus
G2 G
G1
Go

Shear Stress,
G3


Shear Strain, 

Cyclic Loading – Secant Shear Modulus


Go
G Equivalent
Linear
Analysis
Nonlinear Analysis
(step by step) G Skeleton
curve


Branch curve
(Hysteresis loop)

3
 Hysteretic Damping

G
W = Loss of Energy per cycle
W = Strain Energy

W
Damping Ratio,  
4W
7

Modulus Reduction Curve

Modulus
Reduction
Curve
Go
Plasticity index

 %
log scale  After Vucetic, 1994

Threshold Strain
(Below this strain the behaviour is linear)
8

4
 Typical Values of Initial Shear Modulus

(Source: FHWA-SA-97-076) 9

Initial Shear Modulus

Increasing Factor Go
Effective Stress Increases
Void Ratio Decreases
Geologic age Increases
Cementation Increases
Overconsolidation Increases
Plasticity Index Negligible to small increase
Strain Rate No effect on sand
Increases for clay
Number of loading cycles Increases for sand
Decreases for clay

10

5
 Correlations of initial shear Modulus

(Source: FHWA-SA-97-076) 11

Modulus Reduction Curve

Effect of Confining Pressure
Non-plastic soil

G Go


(After Iwasaki et al., 1978)
12

6
 Modulus Reduction Curve
Effect of Confining Pressure

Non-plastic soil Plastic soil

G Go

 
(After Ishibashi, 1992)

13

Modulus Ratio, G/Go

Increasing Factor G/Go

Cyclic Strain Decreases
Effective Stress Increases
Void Ratio Increases
Geologic age May Increase
Cementation May Increase
Overconsolidation No effect
Plasticity Index Increases
Strain Rate No effect
Number of loading cycles Increases for drained sand
Decreases for undrained sand
Decreases for clay

14

7
 28
Modulus Reduction Curve
Effect of Soil Type

Clay
Sand
G Go Gravel

σ’m0 (kPa)

Clay 100

Sand 50 ～300

Gravel 50～830


(Imazu & Fukutake, 1986) 15

Shear Modulus and Damping

with Cyclic Strain

G
τ

1.0

G Go 0.5

10－6
log scale  10－1

16

8
 Modulus Reduction Curve
with Hysteresis and Damping along Depth
Liquefaction  Reduction on effective overburden?
τ

Increasing
τ Overburden
G γ
Deeper Strata τ

γ τ
Go

γ
τ

log scale 
17

Shear Modulus and Damping

Effect of Plasticity Index

G Go

For sand

Damping Ratio
 (%)
(After Vucetic and
Dobry, 1991)

 (%) 18

9
 Damping Ratio, 

Increasing Factor 
Cyclic Strain Increases
Effective Stress Decreases
Void Ratio Decreases
Geologic age Decreases
Cementation May decrease
Overconsolidation No effect
Plasticity Index Decreases
Strain Rate May Increase
Number of loading cycles No significant change

19

Typical values of Poisson’s Ratio

20

10
 Volume Change or Evolution of Pore
Water Pressure During Shearing
Drained Undrained
Shearing Shearing
Slow Loading Fast Loading
Initially loose configuration Contractive Increase in
Pore Water
Pressure

Reduced
Settlement effective stress

Initially Dense configuration

Dilative Decrease in
Pore Water
Pressure

21

Sand Behavior during Cyclic Loading

Drained/Slow Loading:
τ
γ

Compression

Undrained/Fast Loading:
Pore water
τ pressure, p
o
Liquefaction
γ
N (cycle)
22

11
 Stress Strain Curve for soils

q Peak Shear Strength

Zone of instability
Due to
Initial
Overburden Steady State
Cyclic loading Shear Strength
OR
Residual Shear
Strength

q
Strength reduced to 80% of Undrained shear strength is often
considered to avoid large deformations and Instabilities ? 23

Residual Shear Strength

 Difficult to measure in the laboratory
 Triaxial test not reliable at very high strains
 Ring Shear Test
 Sampling issues
 Time consuming
 Field Test
 Correlation with SPT, N60 corrected for fines content.

24

12
Residual Strength and SPT (After Seed and
Harder, 1990)

25

Thank You

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