Study on the small strain shear modulus of saturated sand-fines mixtures by bender element test

Abstract

The small strain shear modulus G_max is an important parameter in geodynamic calculation and earthquake response analysis of site. To have a better fundamental understanding of the deformation behaviour of sand-fines mixtures, a total of 105 bender element tests have been performed. It is found that the G_max is significantly dependent on fines content FC, initial effective confining pressure σ′_3c and void ratio e. Furthermore, FC has an obvious influence on the trend of Gmax – e curve, but the impact decreases as σ′_3c  increases. According to Hardin’s equation, a modified model and an evaluation method of G_max of sand-fines mixture are proposed and verified. Tests results and example of application indicate that the modified equation accounting for the influence of FC can predict the G_max of sand-fines mixture satisfactorily.

Keywords:

• Maximum shear modulus
• Hardin’s equation
• sand-fines mixtures
• bender element
• shear-wave velocity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFC0800206), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51778260 and 51378234). The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge this support.