Effect of silt uniformity on the liquefaction resistance of sand–silt mixtures

Literature review revealed that effects of particle segregation and silt uniformity on the liquefaction resistance of sand–silt mixtures are not well understood. Therefore, cyclic direct simple shear tests were conducted to investigate effects of silt uniformity and stratified structures on the liquefaction resistance of sand–silt mixtures with 0%–40% fines content (FC). For all uniform sand–silt mixtures, as FC increased up to 20%, liquefaction resistance decreased, while it increased as FC increased from 20% to 40%. The liquefaction resistance of the samples with uniform silt only in the top and bottom layers was slightly higher than that of a uniform sample (USM), while the cyclic strength of the samples with silt concentrated in the middle layer was greater (up to 23%) than that of other nonuniform samples. USM exhibited the least liquefaction resistance. In addition, the number of silt layers (NoSLs) substantially affected the liquefaction resistance of stratified structures: as NoSLs increased from 1 to 3 layers, the cyclic resistance ratio was reduced by 20%, 10%, and 7% for FC values of 20%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. The liquefaction resistance of the stratified samples was greater than that of USM. To quantify the effect of silt uniformity and NoSLs, the nonuniformity index (NUI) was introduced herein; the calculated NUI values showed that the increase in liquefaction resistance was well correlated with the increase in the NUI.