Influence of Relative Density on Effective Stress Change

Abstract

This paper presents the results of cyclic simple shear test under constant the volume condition in order to investigate the effect of density on effective stress change of saturated granular materials. Several series of multi-directional cyclic simple shear test were performed on Toyoura sand and the granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) with different relative densities under the phase difference θ = 90º (gyratory cyclic shearing) with various cyclic shear strain amplitudes. From the test results, it was found that the effective stress change of granular materials was influenced dominantly by cyclic shear strain amplitude. It was also clarified that density has a significant effect on the effective stress change of granular materials. Finally, a simple method is presented for estimating the effective stress change of saturated granular materials with different relative densities. The validity of this method is confirmed by comparing with test results under multi-directional cyclic simple shear conditions.