---

An experimental study was carried out to evaluate the influence of silt content on cone penetration measurements and its implication for soil classification. The investigation includes twenty-seven peizocone tests in saturated salty sand samples, which had been prepared in a big rigid thick walled steel cylinder-testing chamber. The samples were prepared with several different silt contents ranging from 0 to 50 percent and were consolidated at three-overburden effective stresses including 100, 200 and 300 kPa. This study showed that, the amount of silt content in sand is an important parameter affecting CPT results. As the silt content increases, the cone tip resistance decreases. The recorded excess pore water pressure during sounding was increased with increasing silt content. It is also concluded that friction ratio, in general, increases with increasing silt content. The method presented by Robertson and Wride [25] and Olsen [17] to evaluate soil classification are also verified.

---

In this study a series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed to examine the undrained dynamic resistance of silty sand reinforced with various arrangements of geotextile layers. The silt content of samples varies in percentage from 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. A total of 32 laboratory cyclic triaxial tests have been performed on silty sand samples reinforced with geotextile layers in different depths. All tests were performed with 100 kPa confining pressure, subjected to an isotropic consolidated undrained (CIU) condition. The tests were conducted at a frequency of 2 Hz. Results indicate that both the geotextile arrangement and the silt content were most essential in the liquefaction potential of reinforced sands. An increase in the number of geotextile layers enhanced the cyclic resistance of reinforced samples against the liquefaction potential. It was also found that when the geotextile layer was posited near the top of the specimen (load application part) the liquefaction resistance would increase (e.g. for clean sands, the improvement of liquefaction resistance caused by the geotextile layer had a 0.2 depth, and the sample height was 5.5 times greater than the geotextile layer inserted in mid height of sample H). Based on the obtained results, effects of geotextile on liquefaction resistance decreased as fines content increased to about 33%. Further increase in the fines content however, would lead to higher in reinforcement advantages. The liquefaction improvement is more effective with a higher number of geotextile layers. The results also revealed that the reinforcement effect in FC≈33 % is at its lowest amount.