Effects of seepage flow on liquefaction resistance of uniform sand and gap-graded soil under undrained cyclic torsional shear

Abstract

Internal erosion is the transportation of soil particles from within or beneath geotechnical structures, caused by seepage flow, that impacts the subsequent mechanical and hydraulic behaviour of the soil. However, it is difficult to predict the liquefaction resistance of eroded soil due to several factors related to the soil fabric. The present study investigates the impact of seepage flow on the undrained cyclic behaviour of two types of soil: uniform sand and gap-graded soil with a fines content of 20%, using a novel erosion hollow cylindrical torsion shear apparatus. From the results for the uniform sand, the soil fabric formed by moist tamping (MT) leads to higher liquefaction resistance than that formed by air-pluviation (AP). However, after applying seepage flow, the liquefaction resistance of the eroded MT specimens becomes even lower than that of the non-eroded AP specimen. Therefore, the liquefaction resistance of soil is expected to decrease due to the rearrangement of the initially stable coarse particles during seepage flow. On the other hand, the liquefaction resistance of the gap-graded soil tends to increase after the removal of fines as the number of stable contacts between the coarse particles is increased. Under these test conditions, the latter effect is found to be greater for the given gradation, leading to a slight increase in the liquefaction resistance of the tested gap-graded soil after internal erosion. Furthermore, the intergranular void ratio and small-strain shear modulus are seen to be well correlated with the liquefaction resistance of the tested soil.