Abstract
The factors affecting the small-strain shear modulus of sand–silt mixture in the saturated or dry state have been studied in the last two decades. The present work investigated the effect of moisture content on the dependence of small-strain shear modulus on the fine content, void ratio and confining pressure for a poorly graded sand mixed with the non-plastic fines. For this purpose, using the triaxial apparatus equipped with the bender element device, the isotropically consolidated samples were first subjected to shear wave and then sheared monotonically by applying a constant rate of axial strain. The results of tests indicated that the small-strain shear modulus follows an increasing–decreasing trend, while the moisture content increases. The change in small-strain shear modulus in terms of fine content is significantly affected by the moisture content. In this way, contrary to the dry state, an increasing trend was developed with increasing the moisture content when the silt content increases. The application of equivalent intergranular void ratio leads to the further concentration of data about the trend curve of small-strain shear modulus.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig1_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig2_HTML.jpg)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig3_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig4_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig5_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig6_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig7_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig8_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig9_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig10_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig11_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig12_HTML.png)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs40996-022-01018-1/MediaObjects/40996_2022_1018_Fig13_HTML.png)
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Belkhatir M, Missoum H, Arab A, Della N, Schanz T (2011) The undrained shear strength characteristics of silty sand: an experimental study of the effect of fines. Geologia Croatica 64(1):31–39
Cheng K, Zhang J, Miao Y, Ruan B, Peng T (2019) The effect of plastic fines on the shear modulus and dam** ratio of silty sands. Bull Eng Geol Env 78(8):5865–5876
Chien LK, Oh YN (1998) Influence on the shear modulus and dam** ratio of hydraulic reclaimed soil in West Taiwan. Int J Offshore Polar Eng 8(3):228–235
Chien LK, Oh YN (2002) Influence of fines content and initial shear stress on dynamic properties of hydraulic reclaimed soil. Can Geotech J 39(1):242–253
Dong Y, Lu N (2016) Dependencies of shear wave velocity and shear modulus of soil on saturation. J Eng Mech 142(11):04016083
Drenevich VP, Richart FEJ (1970) Dynamic prestraining of dry sand. J Soil Mech Found Division ASCE 96(2):453–469
Frost JD, Park JY (2003) A critical assessment of the moist tam** technique. Geotech Test J 26:57–70
Gabryś K, Sas W, Soból E, Głuchowski A (2017) Application of bender elements technique in testing of anthropogenic soil—recycled concrete aggregate and its mixture with rubber chips. Appl Sci 7(7):741
Goudarzy M, Sarkar D (2022) Macro-and micromechanical assessment of the influence of non-plastic fines and stress anisotropy on the dynamic shear modulus of binary mixtures. Fractal Frac 6(4):205
Goudarzy M, König D, Schanz T (2016a) Small strain stiffness of granular materials containing fines. Soils Found 56(5):756–764
Goudarzy M, Rahman MM, König D, Schanz T (2016b) Influence of non-plastic fines content on maximum shear modulus of granular materials. Soils Found 56(6):973–983
Gu X, Yang J, Huang M (2013) Laboratory measurements of small strain properties of dry sands by bender element. Soils Found 53(5):735–745
Gu X, Yang J, Huang M, Gao G (2015) Bender element tests in dry and saturated sand: signal interpretation and result comparison. Soils Found 55(5):951–962
Hardin BO (1978) The nature of stress-strain behaviour of soils. In: Earthquake engineering and soil dynamics–proceedings of the ASCE geotechnical engineering division specialty conference, ASCE, 19–21 June, Pasadena, California, USA, pp 3–90
Hardin BO, Richart FEJ (1963) Elastic wave velocities in granular soils. J Soil Mech Found Division ASCE 89(1):33–65
Hoyos LR, Suescún-Florez EA, Puppala AJ (2015) Stiffness of intermediate unsaturated soil from simultaneous suction-controlled resonant column and bender element testing. Eng Geol 188:10–28
Iwasaki T, Tatsuoka F (1977) Effects of grain size and grading on dynamic shear moduli of sands. Soils Found 17(3):19–35
Khosravi A, Ghayoomi M, McCartney J, Ko HY (2010) Impact of effective stress on the dynamic shear modulus of unsaturated sand. In: GeoFlorida 2010: advances in analysis, modeling and design, pp 410–419
Khosravi A, Shahbazan P, Pak A (2018) Impact of hydraulic hysteresis on the small strain shear modulus of unsaturated sand. Soils Found 58(2):344–354
Lee JS, Santamarina JC (2005) Bender elements: performance and signal interpretation. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 131(9):1063–1070
Mahmoudi Y, Cherif Taiba A, Belkhatir M, Arab A, Schanz T (2018) Laboratory study on undrained shear behaviour of overconsolidated sand–silt mixtures: effect of the fines content and stress state. Int J Geotech Eng 12(2):118–132
Maleki M, Bayat M (2012) Experimental evaluation of mechanical behavior of unsaturated silty sand under constant water content condition. Eng Geol 141–142:45–56
Maleki M, Ezzatkhah A, Bayat M, Mousivand M (2009) Effect of physical parameters on static undrained resistance of sandy soil with low silt content. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 31:1324–1331
Mohammadi A, Qadimi A (2014) A simple critical state approach to predicting the cyclic and monotonic response of sands with different fines contents using the equivalent intergranular void ratio. Acta Geotech 10(5):587–606
Ng CWW, Menzies B (2014) Advanced unsaturated soil mechanics and engineering. CRC Press
Ngoc TP, Li D, Fatahi B, Khabbaz H (2017) A review on the influence of degree of saturation on small strain shear modulus of unsaturated soils. In: ICSMGE 2017–19th international conference on soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering
Ogino T, Kawaguchi T, Yamashita S, Kawajiri S (2015) Measurement deviations for shear wave velocity of bender element test using time domain, cross-correlation, and frequency domain approaches. Soils Found 55(2):329–342
Oh WT, Vanapalli SK (2011) The relationship between the elastic and shear modulus of unsaturated soils. In: Alonso E, Gens A (eds) Unsaturated soils, proceedings of the 5th international conference on unsaturated soils, pp 341–346
Oh WT, Vanapalli SK (2014) Semi-empirical model for estimating the small-strain shear modulus of unsaturated non-plastic sandy soils. Geotech Geol Eng 32(2):259–271
Qian X, Gray DH, Woods RD (1991) Resonant column tests on partially saturated sands. Geotech Test J 14(3):266–275
Rahman MM, Lo SR (2008) The prediction of equivalent granular steady state line of loose sand with fines. Geomech Geoeng Int J 3(3):179–190
Rahman MM, Lo SR, Gnanendran CT (2008) On equivalent granular void ratio and steady state behaviour of loose sand with fines. Can Geotech J 45(10):1439–1456
Rahman MM, Cubrinovski M, Lo SR (2012) Initial shear modulus of sandy soils and equivalent granular void ratio. Geomech Geoeng 7(3):219–226
Ruan B, Miao Y, Cheng K, Yao EL (2021) Study on the small strain shear modulus of saturated sand-fines mixtures by bender element test. Eur J Environ Civ Eng 25(1):28–38
Tatsuoka F, Shibuya S (1991) Deformation characteristics of soils and rocks from field and laboratory tests. In: The 9th Asian regional conference on soil mechanics and foundation engineering, vol 2, Bangkok, Thailand, pp 101–170
Thevanayagam S (2000). Liquefaction potential and undrained fragility of silty soils. In: Proceedings of the 12th world conference earthquake engineering, New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering, Wellington, New Zealand
Thevanayagam S, Shenthan T, Mohan S, Liang J (2002) Undrained fragility of clean sands, silty sands, and sandy silts. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 128(10):849–859
Wichtmann T, Triantafyllidis T (2009) On the correlation of “static” and “dynamic” stiffness moduli of non-cohesive soils. Bautechnik 86(S1):28–39
Wichtmann T, Hernández MN, Triantafyllidis T (2015) On the influence of a non-cohesive fines content on small strain stiffness, modulus degradation and dam** of quartz sand. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 69:103–114
Wichtmann T, Kimmig I, Triantafyllidis T (2017) On correlations between “dynamic” (small-strain) and “static” (large-strain) stiffness moduli—an experimental investigation on 19 sands and gravels. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 98:72–83
Yamamuro JA, Wood FM (2004) Effect of depositional method on the undrained behavior and microstructure of sand with silt. Soil Dyn Earthq Eng 24:751–760
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Basiri Parsa, S., Maleki, M. Factors Affecting Small-Strain Shear Modulus of Sand–Silt Mixture Considering Different Moisture Contents. Iran J Sci Technol Trans Civ Eng 47, 479–490 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-022-01018-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40996-022-01018-1