Scaling law of static liquefaction mechanism in geocentrifuge and corresponding hydromechanical characterization of an unsaturated silty sand having a viscous pore fluid

Abstract

Fast landslides induced by rainfall impose considerable damage on infrastructure and cause major casualties worldwide. Static liquefaction is one of the triggering mechanisms mentioned frequently in the literature as a cause of this type of landslide. The scaling laws required to model this mechanism in the geotechnical centrifuge are developed, and it is shown that either a reduction in the soil pore size or use of a viscous pore fluid is needed to unify the time scaling factors of contractive volume change of the saturated voids and dissipation of the excess pore pressure generated. The latter option was used in this research; therefore, the influences of the viscous pore fluid on the hydromechanical characteristics of a silty sand were investigated. Subsequently, geocentrifuge tests were conducted to compare the behaviour of a slope having a viscous solution as the pore fluid with that of a model with water as the pore fluid. Both slopes were subjected to rainfall, and the evolution of the pore pressure and surface movements were monitored.