Integrated effects of inherent and induced anisotropy on reliquefaction resistance of Toyoura sand with different strain histories

Abstract

Recent earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan showed that pre-shaking histories significantly affected the reliquefaction resistance of soils. In this study, a series of experimental tests was conducted to elucidate the coupled effects of inherent and induced anisotropy on reliquefaction resistance of Toyoura sand, which have not been studied before. Accordingly, loose and dense Toyoura sands were prepared with two different methods: dry deposition and moist tamping. The specimens were sheared cyclically using a hollow cylinder torsional shear apparatus under various cyclic stress ratios up to different residual shear strains (γres) and reconsolidated at different states. The experimental results were assessed from various perspectives, including stress–strain relationships, failure mechanisms, liquefaction/reliquefaction resistance, excess pore water pressure (EPWP) generation and compressibility in conjunction with micromechanical interpretations. It was shown that fabric evolution affects the reliquefaction characteristics of Toyoura sand substantially. Interestingly, a unique correlation exists between EPWP and shear strain accumulation for all tests. An energy-based model was developed to uniquely correlate the dissipated energy with the cyclic resistance based only on residual shear strains; this model shows great promise to develop a unified, energy-based criterion for quantifying the liquefaction/reliquefaction resistance of soils with different fabrics.