Liquefaction Behaviour of a Sand-Nonplastic Silt Mixture:Cyclic Triaxial Study

Liquefaction of cohesive and non-cohesive soils has been studied extensively for decades and is empirically well established. Constitutive models based on elastic-plastic, and state space based theories exist to understand the liquefaction behavior. Compared to clean sand, soils which are mixtures of cohesive and non-cohesive components or mixtures of different particle sizes, were found to behave differently, therefore soil mixtures require further exploration. Selecting a density variable, so as to be applicable to all the situations, due to the micro mechanics of mixtures was found to be difficult for mixtures. Many alternative variables have been proposed in the past to account for the effect of fine particles, plastic or nonplastic, in affecting the shear strength and volumetric behavior of mixtures, under monotonic and cyclic loading, but conclusions have remained ambiguous. What are the constituents of void ratio as an extensive variable to describe the state of the mixture in liquefaction problem, and the applicability of, state based, critical state theories for mixtures are some of the basic questions.