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The unique behaviour of carbonate materials under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties.Carbonate soils composed of calcium or other carbonates and most abundant in tropical marine environments are of interest from geotechnical view, especially for offshore engineers engaged with Fossil-based fuel exploitation. This was initiated in the early 1960's, when the first offshore borings in the Persian Gulf identified layers of calcarenite and thick layers of sand containing visible shell fragments.For the purpose of exploiting gas and oil resources in hot and temperate climates (e.g. Persian Gulf) off-shore structures have been placed on carbonate soils. The carbonate sediments are high crushable compared with low crushable sediments such as quartzic soils.To examine the crushability of these problematic sediments a series of monotonic compression, extension and post-cyclic triaxial tests under different densities and confining pressures was carried out to study the crushing behaviour of "Rock" carbonate sand obtained from Cornwall, England.It was shown that crushing coefficient decreases with increasing in maximum principal effective stress ratio for both loose and dense states. It seems that for skeletal carbonate sand maximum and minimum dry densities will be changed during shearing loading. In other words, even though the sample has experienced an increase in density, it may also have experienced a reduction in relative density.

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This paper presents the results of a series of monotonic and post-cyclic triaxial tests carried out on a clay specimen and three types of clay-sand mixed specimens. The focus of the paper is on the post-cyclic mechanical behavior of the mixed specimens, as compared to their monotonic behavior. Analyses of the tests results show that cyclic loading degrade undrained shear strength and deformation modulus of the specimens during the post-cyclic monotonic loading. The degradation depends on the sand content, the cyclic strain level and to some degrees to the consolidation pressure.

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The present paper is devoted to a new critical state based plasticity model able to predict drained and undrained behaviour of

granular material. It incorporates a bounding surface plasticity model describing in multilaminate framework to capitalize on

advantages of this mathematical framework. Most of the models developed using stress/strain invariants are not capable of

identifying the parameters depending on directional effects such as principal stress rotation and fabric this is mainly because

stress/strain invariants are scalar quantities. The principal features of this model can be postulated as considering both inherent

and induced anisotropy, principal stress rotation. Since the local instability of saturated sand within post-liquefaction is highly

dependent on the residual inherent/induced anisotropy, bedding plane effects and also the stress/strain path the new mode is

competent to be employed in this regard. The constitutive equations of the model are derived within the context of non-linear

elastic behaviour for the whole medium and plastic sliding of interfaces of predefined planes. As follows, the constitutive

equations are described in detail and then the experimental results and sensitive analysis of key material constants are shown

which all imply the power of the model in predicting of soil behaviour under any condition in soil structures.

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The Dynamic Probe is an effective tool used in site investigation. It is more economic than the use of direct drilling, particularly in explorations with moderate depth. This paper presents an experimental study to investigate the capability of using dynamic probing to evaluate the shear strength and compaction percent of fine soil. A series of dynamic probe tests were carried out at 6 different sites in the Khozestan, Hormozgan and Qom provinces in the central and southern regions of Iran. The repeatability of the results is considered and new empirical equations relating the dynamic point resistance to undrained shear strength and compaction percent are proposed. For undrained shear strength evaluation of fine soils, i.e. clay and silty clay soils, a reliable site-specific correlation between qd and Cu can be developed when considering the correlation between log qd and log Cu. Also compaction present can be evaluated by qd. These equations can be developed to provide site-specific relationships based upon geotechnical data at each new location. Using this approach an estimation of the undrained shear strength Cu and compaction percent CP can be determined from dynamic probe tests with acceptable accuracy. The present paper also encourages the wider application of dynamic probing for site investigation in fine soils.

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The behavior of Chamkhaleh sand and three other recognized sands namely, Babolsar, Firouzkuh and Standard (Ottawa) sands are compared using triaxial apparatus under undrained monotonic loading conditions. Chamkhaleh and Babolsar sands are supplied naturally from southern Caspian Sea shorelines, whereas artificial Firouzkuh and Standard sands were supplied commercially. Samples were prepared using wet tamping with regard to the reduced compaction effect at relative density of 15% under isotropic consolidation pressures of 100, 300 and 500 kPa. The results of triaxial tests have indicated that Chamkhaleh sand has much more dilation tendency than the other sands. In order to evaluate the reasons behind this behavior, the spherecity and roundness of all the four sand particles were measured using an image processing method. It was revealed that the spherecity of the four sands is not much different, but Chamkhaleh sand is more angular than the other sands. For comparison of the dilative response of the sands in undrained triaxial tests, a “dilation tendency index” is introduced. This index may be used as a criterion for measuring the dilation of sands in undrained tests. Results have shown that the internal friction angle under the steady state condition is more dependent on the shape of particles than the maximum strength condition. For spherecities greater than 0.5, the dependency rate of sand behavior on the roundness is decreased.