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1. Influence of Natural Soil Fabric on the Cyclic Resistance of Low and High Plasticity Silts

   Dadashiserej, A. ; Jana, A. ; Evans, T.M. ; Stuedlein, A.W. ( June 2022 , 12th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering)

   This paper presents the results from a study of the role of soil fabric on the cyclic response of silty soil samples retrieved from two different sites from a series of sites investigated as a part of a larger study: one along the Willamette River (Site B) and one along the Columbia River (Site D). The soils investigated in this study were retrieved from Site B and exhibited an average 𝑃𝐼=13, and from Site D which were characterized with an average 𝑃𝐼=28. The cyclic response of the soils was evaluated by performing several constant-volume, stress-controlled, cyclic direct simple shear tests (CDSS) with varying cyclic stress ratios, CSRs, on natural, intact specimens and their reconstituted counterparts. Despite the lower void ratios of the reconstituted specimens, the cyclic resistance of the intact specimens for Sites B and D at 15 loading cycles were 19% and 37% greater than their reconstituted counterparts, respectively. For the given loading conditions, the rate of excess pore pressure development, single amplitude shear strain (𝛾) accumulation, and shear stiffness degradation in reconstituted specimens were greater than the natural intact specimens, emphasizing the role of soil fabric, as confirmed by the lower shear wave velocity (𝑉𝑠) of reconstituted specimens compared to their intact counterparts. 

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2. Constitutive modeling of the cyclic loading response of low plasticity fine-grained soils

   https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0125-4_1  

   Boulanger, R. W. ; Price, A. B. ; Ziotopoulou, K. ( May 2018 , GSIC 2018, Proceedings of GeoShanghai 2018 International Conference: Fundamentals of Soil Behaviours, A. Zhou et al. (Eds.), Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.)

   Calibrations of the PM4Silt constitutive model are presented for two low-plasticity fine-grained soils that exhibit significantly different cyclic loading be-haviors. The PM4Silt model is a stress-ratio controlled, critical state compatible, bounding surface plasticity model that was recently developed for representing low-plasticity silts and clays in geotechnical earthquake engineering applications. The low-plasticity clayey silt and silty clay examined herein were reconstituted mixtures of silica silt and kaolin with plasticity indices (PIs) of 6 and 20. Un-drained monotonic and undrained cyclic direct simple shear (DSS) tests were per-formed on normally consolidated, slurry deposited specimens. Calibration of the PM4Silt model was based on the monotonic and cyclic DSS test data, plus em-pirical relationships for strain-dependent secant shear moduli and equivalent damping ratios. The calibration process and performance of the PM4Silt constitu-tive model are described for each soil. The results illustrate that PM4Silt is capa-ble of reasonably approximating a range of monotonic and cyclic loading behav-iors important to many earthquake engineering applications and is relatively easy to calibrate. 

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3. In-Situ Liquefaction Testing of a Medium Dense Sand Deposit and Comparison to Case History- and Laboratory-Based Cyclic Stress and Strain Evaluations

   Stuedlein, A.W. ; Jana, A. ( September 2022 , 4th International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering)

   Wang, L. ; Zhang, J.-M. ; Wang, R. (Ed.)

   Observations of the dynamic loading and liquefaction response of a deep medium dense sand deposit to controlled blasting have allowed quantification of its large-volume dynamic behavior from the linear-elastic to nonlinear-inelastic regimes under in-situ conditions unaffected by the influence of sample disturbance or imposed laboratory boundary conditions. The dynamic response of the sand was shown to be governed by the S-waves resulting from blast-induced ground motions, the frequencies of which lie within the range of earthquake ground motions. The experimentally derived dataset allowed ready interpretation of the in-situ γ-ue responses under the cyclic strain approach. However, practitioners have more commonly interpreted cyclic behavior using the cyclic stress-based approach; thus this paper also presents the methodology implemented to interpret the equivalent number of stress cycles, Neq, and deduce the cyclic stress ratios, CSRs, generated during blast-induced shearing to provide a comprehensive comparison of the cyclic resistance of the in-situ and constant-volume, stress- and strain-controlled cyclic direct simple shear (DSS) behavior of reconstituted sand specimens consolidated to the in-situ vertical effective stress, relative density, and Vs. The multi-directional cyclic resistance of the in-situ deposit was observed to be larger than that derived from the results of the cyclic strain and stress interpretations of the uniaxial DSS test data, indicating the substantial contributions of natural soil fabric and partial drainage to liquefaction resistance during shaking. The cyclic resistance ratios, CRRs, computed using case history-based liquefaction triggering procedures based on the SPT, CPT, and Vs are compared to that determined from in-situ CRR-Neq relationships considering justified, assumed slopes of the CRR-N curve, indicating variable degrees of accuracy relative to the in-situ CRR, all of which were smaller than that associated with the in-situ cyclic resistance. 

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4. In-situ and Laboratory Cyclic Response of an Alluvial Plastic Silt Deposit

   Dadashiserej, A. ; Jana, A. ; Stuedlein, A.W. ; Evans, T.M. ; Zhang, B. ; Xu, Z. ; Stokoe II, K.H. ; Cox, B.R. ( May 2022 , Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Sydney 2021)

   Current best practices for the assessment of the cyclic response of plastic silts are centered on the careful sampling and cyclic testing of natural, intact specimens. Side-by-side evaluation of in-situ and laboratory element test responses are severely limited, despite the need to establish similarities and differences in their characteristics. In this paper, a coordinated laboratory and field-testing campaign that was undertaken to compare the strain-controlled cyclic response of a plastic silt deposit at the Port of Longview, Longview, WA is described. Following a discussion of the subsurface conditions at one of several test panels, the responses of laboratory test specimens to resonant column and cyclic torsional shear testing, and constant-volume, strain-controlled cyclic direct simple shear testing are described in terms of shear modulus nonlinearity and degradation, and excess pore pressure generation with shear strain. Several months earlier, the in-situ cyclic response of the same deposit was investigated by applying a range of shear strain amplitudes using a large mobile shaker. The in-situ response is presented and compared to the laboratory test results, highlighting similarities and differences arising from differences in mechanical (e.g., constant-volume shearing; strain rate-effects) and hydraulic (e.g., local drainage) boundary conditions and the spatial variability of natural soil deposits. 

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5. Centrifuge modeling of cone penetration testing in layered soil

   https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784481455.013  

   Khosravi, Mohammad ; Boulanger, Ross W. ; DeJong, Jason T. ; Khosravi, Ali ; Hajialilue-Bonab, Masoud ; Wilson, Daniel W. ( June 2018 , Proc., Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics V, Geotechnical Special Publication 290, S. J. Brandenberg and M. T. Manzari, eds., ASCE)

   The effect of soil interlayering on the measured cone penetration resistance was examined in a layered soil model tested on a 9-m radius centrifuge. The soil profile consisted of a layer of sand between overlying and underlying layers of low plasticity clayey silt. The sand layer thickness varied from 0 to 240 mm (model scale) along the length of the model. The sand was loose with a relative density of 44% on one side of the model, and dense with a relative density of 88% on the other side. The clayey silt had a plasticity index (PI) of 6 and over-consolidation ratio (OCR) of about 1.5. Multiple cone penetration soundings were performed along the width and length of the model using cone penetrometers with diameters of 4, 6 and 10 mm. The model construction procedure, data processing, and cone penetration testing results are described. 

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