Investigating the Simultaneous Effect of Suction and Silt Percentage on the Critical State Shear Strength of the Unsaturated Silty Sand

Abstract

In this study, the critical state shear strength of a type of sand with different silt percentages in saturated and unsaturated states has been investigated. For this purpose, a number of undrained consolidated (CU) and drained consolidated (CD) triaxial tests were performed on saturated and unsaturated samples, respectively. The samples were sheared under confining pressures of 50, 100 and 150 kPa and suction levels of 50, 100, 150 and 250 kPa for unsaturated samples. In the saturated state, the results showed that if samples are remolded with the same eeq, for the different percentages of fines the critical state lines are converged. In the unsaturated state and net stress state, the critical state line is not only dependent on suction, but also changes with changes in the percentage of fines. However, in the effective stress state, by applying the appropriate effective stress relations and the concept of equivalent intergranular skeleton void ratio, these lines can be converged independently of suction and fine content and reach a single critical state line in the stresses space.

Keywords

• unsaturated silty sand
• shear strength
• critical state
• fine content
• equivalent intergranular void ratio