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Laboratory Study on Soil Shear Strength under Unloading Conditions

Conference Paper  in  Geotechnical Special Publication · June 2011

DOI: 10.1061/47633(412)29

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 217

Laboratory Study on Soil Shear Strength under Unloading Conditions

Jun-Ping Yuan1 and Hoang Viet Nguyen2

1
Associate Professor, Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Geomechanics and Embankment
Engineering, Hohai University, Xikang Road 1#, Nanjing P.R. China 210098; yuan_junph@163.com
2
Postgraduate Student, Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Geomechanics and Embankment
Engineering, Hohai University, Xikang Road 1#, Nanjing P.R. China 210098; nhvdhxd@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: In excavated earth structures (e.g. Deep Excavation, Cut slope, and
Underground Construction etc.) unloading is the most predominant factor that affects
on the behavior of soil mass. Although in engineering practice, loading mode is usually
applied without really considering the influence of unloading factor; and shear strength
parameters are often deduced from the conventional triaxial compression test. There
are some doubts when applying the shear strength characteristic to analyze the stability
of unloading cases. In this study, a comparison in soil shear strength between loading
and unloading modes was pointed out, which was based on two series of tests for
remoulded clay conducted on the Advanced Stress Path Triaxial Testing System. The
test results showed that the quantities of shear strength in both cases were almost the
same, but there were some discrepancies between them in the stress-strain and excess
pore pressure characteristics.

INTRODUCTION

Disturbance on stress state and stress path of soil elements in the vicinity of
construction site results from various construction activities. Due to the increase or
decrease in stress state, the disturbance can be clarified into two types of influence:
loading and unloading. In excavated earth structures, unloading is the major influence
which affects on the behavior of soil mass. Excavation activities result in the decrease
of horizontal stress in soil elements at the sides and of vertical stress in soil elements at
the bottom of deep excavation (or tunnel, cut slope etc.), which is illustrated in FIG. 1.
The change of stress state following unloading stress paths might induce plastic failure
in the soil elements during construction stage. They are contrary to the loading stress
path from the conventional triaxial compression test used to determine the shear
strength parameters in laboratory.
The problem of unloading factor influencing on excavated earth structures has been
already encountered in some published researches. For example, the lateral unloading
due to excavation is one of two crucial external factors inducing landslides in
unsaturated soils (Bao and C.W.W. 2000). Or Ng (1999) mentioned that for improving

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 218

design and analysis of soil-structure interaction associated with deep excavation, it is

important to understand about effective stress changes around excavations caused by
both horizontal and vertical stress relief.
In the last decades, some test series have been done respect to loading and unloading
stress paths in both conventional triaxial and true triaxial test systems. The differences
in stress-strain curve, elastic modulus and failure characteristic during shear have
already pointed out (He, Han et al. 2003; Zhang and Sun 2005; Yang, Zhu et al. 2006;
Chen, Ling et al. 2007), however, in shear strength characteristic the conclusion is still
quite implicit and scatter (Ma and Chang 2001; Zhang and Sun 2005).
This paper is devoted to investigate the difference in soil shear strength between
loading and unloading stress paths, which was based on a series of triaxial stress path
test for remoulded clay conducted on the Advanced Stress Path Triaxial Testing
System.

FIG. 1. Unloading Stress Path in Engineering Practice

SOIL MATERIAL AND TESTING PROCEDURE

The soil used in this study was taken from a cut slope construction of highway project
in Zhenjiang City, China. The basic physical properties of the soil were determined in
accordance with the procedures given in GB/T 50123-1999 (Ministry of Construction
P. R. China, 1999). The specific gravity is 2.7. The liquid and plastic limits of the
particles finer than 500 µm are 32.39% and 20.11% respectively. The percent by dry
weight of the soil gains finer than 2 mm passing the No. 200 (75 µm) sieve is 81%.
According to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS), the soil is classified as
clay of low plasticity (CL). The maximum dry density and optimum water content
determined from the standard Proctor test are 1810 kg/m3 and 16%, respectively.
Moist-tamping method was used to reconstitute 12 cylindrical specimens 39.1 mm in
diameter and 80 mm in height. The dry soil material was first thoroughly mixed with
distilled water to achieve the water content of 14% by weight; then compacted inside a
mould in five layers using a flat-bottom tamper to the required dry density of 1738
kg/m3.

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 219

A testing program was designed to investigate the difference in shear strength

characteristics under loading and unloading conditions; it included three groups of
triaxial stress path tests carried out on GDS – Advanced Triaxial Testing System. They
are summarized in Table 1 below. Each group includes four tests those are
consolidated at different effective confining pressures of 100, 200, 400, and 800 kPa
respectively. The effective stress ratio, which is defined by the effective axial stress -
σ axial
'
over the effective radial stress - σ radial
'
in soil sample at the end of consolidation
stage, is 1.1 to guarantee the identity in stress state before shearing of the extension and
compression tests with respect to the influence of the docking manual of extension cap
on the top cap of specimen. During shear, the type of total stress path of four tests in
group CL, group EU, and group CU are Compression – Loading, Extension –
Unloading, and Compression – Unloading respectively, which are illustrated by the
stress path OA, OB, and OC in FIG. 1.

Table 1 Testing Program

End of Consolidation Stage Shearing Stage

No. Group σ '
Test ID Loading/ Compression/
σ radial
'
σ axial
' axial
σ axial σ radial
σ '
radial
Unloading Extension

1 100 110 1.1 CL100

2 200 220 1.1 CL200
CL Loading Compression Increasing Unchanged
3 400 440 1.1 CL400
4 800 880 1.1 CL800
5 100 110 1.1 EU100
6 200 220 1.1 EU200
EU Extension Decreasing Unchanged
7 400 440 1.1 EU400
8 800 880 1.1 EU800
Unloading
9 100 110 1.1 CU110
10 200 220 1.1 CU200
CU Compression Unchanged Decreasing
11 400 440 1.1 CU400
12 800 880 1.1 CU800

The consolidation was carried out against an elevated pore pressure to ensure
complete saturation of the sample. A back pressure of 200 kPa was applied, which has
been found sufficient to dissolve all the air bubbles (Balasubramiam and Waheed
1977). Depending on the confining pressure applied, the duration of consolidation
stage varied from 2 to 7 days.
Undrained condition was imposed during shearing; the total stress path of each test
was controlled by a computer with the constant loading rate of 0.655 kPa per minute.
The loading rate ( σ& ) was calculated to ensure the time duration for shearing ( Δt ) of
test EU200 about 250 minutes by equation, σ& = ( qi − q f ) Δt whereas qi is the deviator
stress at the end of consolidation, which has been designed in test scheme; q f is the

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 220

deviator stress when the soil specimen fails; and the time duration for shearing - Δt is
of 250 minutes, which was deduced based on the strain rate of 0.08% per minute
proposed for triaxial consolidation undrained test on clayey soils according to the
standard - GB/T 50123-1999. Consequently, the duration for shearing is different test
by test in the series, and they are shown in combination with the total stress paths in
FIG. 2.

FIG. 2. Total Stress Paths

TEST RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Shear Strength Characteristics

The effective stress paths of three groups are shown in FIG. 3. On each effective
stress path, one “peak point” is indicated. The meaning of “peak point” here is not the
same as the peak point determined by maximum deviator stress - qmax criterion on
stress-strain curve, but based on the maximum of stress ratio - ηmax = q p ' criterion
from effective stress path. Thus the four “peak points” in each group enables the
K f -line (Mohr-Coulomb failure line in p ' − q coordinates) to be determined by the
linear least square fitting method.
Consequently, the value of shear strength parameters c ' and φ ' corresponding to
each group are deduced and shown in Table 2. These results reveal that, the shear
strength in unloading cases is a little bit larger than that in loading case, which is in
contrary to the conclusion from Zhang and Sun (2005): “The shear strength at
extension failure is less than that at compression failure”.
The values of effective cohesion c ' of three groups are bigger than zero. It means
there exist weakly bonding and interlocking among soil particles. The effective
cohesion of group EU is larger than those of groups CL and CU. It can be explained by
the influence of the strength of the rubber membrane surrounding the specimen, and
gravity, which exist in triaxial extension tests but not in triaxial compression tests (Wu
and Kolymbas 1991).

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 221

FIG. 3. Mohr-Coulomb Failure Envelopes of the Three Groups

Table 2. Shear Strength Parameters

Group a/a* M/M* Converting Formulas c' φ'

CL 12.45 1.13 ⎛ 3M ⎞ ' a 5.95 28.32
φ ' = arcsin ⎜ ⎟ c = M .cot φ '
CU 3.56 1.25 ⎝ 6+M ⎠ 1.72 31.18
⎛ −3M * ⎞ ' a*
EU -20.48 -0.92 φ ' = arcsin ⎜ * ⎟ c = 14.36 32.70
⎝6+M ⎠ M * .cot φ '

Deviator Stress against Axial Strain Relationship

FIG. 4. Stress-Strain Curves FIG. 5. Yielding Strength versus

Effective Confining Pressures

FIG. 4 shows that the stress-strain curves of extension tests are much different from
those of the compression tests. In extension group, the stress-strain curves yield when
the deviator stress is small, and drop at the axial strain about 13%, which do not occur

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 222

in the two compression groups. From the yield points on stress-strain curve, the
yielding strengths of tests are also determined, and illustrated against the effective
confining pressure as FIG. 5. It is realized that the yielding strength of extension tests
are less than those of two compression tests, and the difference in yielding strength
between the two cases increases with the increase of effective confining pressure. This
finding is in accordance with that reported by Ma and Chang (2001).

FIG. 6. Normalized Stress-Strain FIG. 7. Brittleness Index versus

Curves Effective Consolidation Pressure

FIG. 8. Excess Pore-Pressures of Three FIG. 9. Excess Pore-Pressures of

Groups Extension-Unloading Test Group

The stress-strain curves are normalized by dividing the deviator stress by the
corresponding pre-shear effective mean stress ( q pc' ) as FIG. 6. This figure reveals
that the strain-softening behavior exists on the stress-strain curves of groups CL and
EU, but does not on those of group CU. To describe strain-softening behavior,
brittleness index is often used after it was defined by Bishop (1967). FIG. 7 shows the
brittleness indices of each group illustrated against effective confining pressure. From
the figure, it is obviously that the trend of decreasing brittleness indices when

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Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 223

increasing effective consolidation confining pressure in the three groups is evident, and
the values of brittleness indices are biggest in group CL, intermediate in group EU, and
smallest in group CU.

Excess Pore Pressures against Axial Strain Relationship

FIG. 8 shows that it is similarly to the stress-strain curves in FIG. 4, the magnitude of
excess pore-water pressures of group CL highly depends on the consolidation
confining pressure applied. The magnitude of excess pore-water pressures of group EU
is also dependent on the consolidation confining pressure but not as strongly as those of
group CL; while the dependence is not evident in group CU.
Furthermore, the excess pore pressures of groups EU and CU decrease very fast to
negative value during the short period of time after the beginning of shearing stage.
After that, the excess pore pressures in the extension tests increase to positive values
(FIG. 9), while the magnitude of negative excess pore pressure in compression
unloading tests decreases when the axial strain increases, but their values are still
negative until failure achieved. They are in contrary to the positive excess pore
pressure in compression loading tests. The results indicate different dilatancy rates of
these three types of shearing tests.

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the results of the present experimental investigation on triaxial stress-path

test series for remoulded clayey soil, the following conclusions are drawn:
1. The values of shear strength parameters of two unloading stress path groups are a
little bit greater than those of the loading stress path group.
2. The yield strengths of extension case are obviously less than those of compression
cases, and the difference of the yielding strengths between these two cases increase
with the confining pressure increases.
3. The strain-softening behavior appears strongly in the compression loading case,
intermediately in extension unloading case, and slightly in the compression
unloading case. The magnitude of strain-softening behavior decreases with the
effective confining pressure increases, and disappears at the effective confining
pressure of 800 kPa.
4. In compression loading case: similarly to the stress-strain curve, the magnitude of
excess pore-water pressure highly depends on the effective consolidation confining
pressure applied. The magnitude of excess pore-water pressure in extension
unloading case is also dependent on the consolidation confining pressure but not as
strongly as compression loading case, while the dependence is not evident in
compression unloading case.
5. Under unloading stress paths, the negative excess pore-water pressure develops
during the short period of time after the beginning of shearing stage, then those
excess pore-water pressures change to the opposite tendency.

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 Geotechnical Special Publication No. 222 © ASCE 2011 224

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors appreciate the support from the National Science and Technology
Ministry of China in 11th Five-Year Plan (ID: 2006BAB04A10) and the National
Natural Science of China (ID: 51008117).
The Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education for Geomechanics and Embankment
Engineering and Geotechnical Research Institute of Hohai University are
acknowledged for their support.

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