Effects of frequencies on the cyclic behavior of marine soft clay under different consolidated stress paths

Abstract

To experimentally investigate the effect of frequency on the cyclic behavior of marine soft clay under different consolidated stress paths, a series of cyclic tests on remolded Wenzhou marine clay were conducted under undrained conditions covering various frequencies and consolidated stress paths using a triaxial apparatus. The development of pore water pressure, stress–strain relationship, and resilient modulus was analyzed. Several useful conclusions were reached from this study. First, the trends of pore water pressure development can be divided into three stages: linearly increasing, slowly increasing, and stable. Second, the frequency has a more pronounced influence on the number of cycles of the steady value of pore water pressure than the counterparts of values of the ratio of the radial to vertical consolidation stresses, K. Then, a unified linear equation was established based on the consideration of different K values on a logarithmic scale. Finally, the shapes of the stress–resilient strain hysteretic loops and the range encompassed by the stress–resilient strain hysteretic loops are slight as the value of K decreases, which indicates that the K value has a slight effect on the shift in the type of elastic behavior of clay.

Keywords:

• Marine soft clay
• frequency
• consolidated stress path
• cyclic behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52108340 and 52108338), the Innovative Research Project of Graduate Students of Zhejiang (Grant No. Y202146773 and Y2020438) and the Program of Science and Technology of Ruian (Grant No. MS2021034). We gratefully acknowledge these financial supports.