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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.

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This research include, more than 400 erosion tests performed on coarse and fine grain suspension materials. The purpose of tests was to determine erosion characteristics of mixtures of different materials. Samples of the .same constituents in different groups were cured tit two different setting time of // and 16 !tours before they were subjected to the constant hydraulic heads of 20 and 40 cm for ct time period of 30 urinates. The amount of erosion was measured as the weight loss of the samples offer the test. /n general the lower setting tune and the higher hydraulic head for a large group of samples showed higher erosion. For uniform sand samples when the cement content was 60-70 % the percentage of erosion (PE) was below 2. For the mixture of sand-cement, with the clay content below, 20% the percentage of erosion was below 2 and it increased to 15.5 for the clan, content of 58dc. Die addition of bentonite in the soil-cement mixtures in general did not affect the erosion.

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An experimental study was carried out to evaluate the liquefaction resistance of silty sand utilizing laboratory techniques. In this study, liquefaction potential of silty sand by using cyclic triaxial tests on frozen samples retrieved from calibration chamber and constructed samples by dry pouring method were investigated. Correlation between cone penetration resistance and cyclic strength of undisturbed silty sand samples are also examined using CPT calibration chamber and cyclic triaxial tests. The cone penetration tests were performed on silty sand samples with fine contents ranging from 0% to 50% and overburden stresses in the range of 100-300 kPa. Then the soil sample in calibration chamber, in the same way that soil samples were prepared during CPT sounding, was frozen and undisturbed soil specimen retrieved from frozen soil sample were tested using cyclic triaxial tests. Analysis of results indicates that the quality of frozen samples is affected by fine content and overburden pressures. Also, using data obtained in this research, the relationship between cone tip resistance and cyclic resistance ratio (CRR) for silty sand soils will be presented. These correlations are in relatively good agreement with field case history data. Also increasing confining pressure in silty sand material increases the cone tip resistance and generally, cyclic resistance ratio increases by increasing silt content.

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The main purpose of this research is evaluation of effect of chemicals on permeability of sand- bentonite mixtures. The coefficients of permeability of sand- bentonite mixtures in water, solutions of sodium and calcium chlorides, sodium hydroxide, acetic acid, methanol and carbon tetrachloride were calculated using parameters obtained in 1- D consolidation test and Terzaghi’s theory. At each void ratio permeability of samples in water is the lowest and that for carbon tetrachloride is the highest. For all fluids the permeability index Ck is decreased as the percentage of sand is increased. The largest Ck belongs to the samples tested in water and the smallest Ck belongs to the samples tested in carbon tetrachloride.

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The CANAsand constitutive law in conjunction with the ID technique is used to study the flow phenomenon in a cohesionless granular medium placed between two parallel, rough vertical walls. It is shown that the development of flow is influenced by the geometry of the case. However the main factor is the void ratio of the medium: i.e. arching will prevent the free flow of the material if its void is close to the compact state. The study is extended to cover the axisymmetric situation. Here the flow of bulk solids through a circular opening at the base of a cylindrical tank is examined.

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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 highlights the effect of silt content on cone tip resistance in loose silty sand. In this study, twenty-seven cone penetration tests are performed in saturated silty sand samples with several different silt contents ranging from 10 to 50 percent. The samples are consolidated at three overburden stresses including 100, 200 and 300 kPa. It is shown that, as the silt content increases, the cone tip resistance decreases. In high percent of silt (30-50%), the cone tip resistance decreases more gently compared with low percent of silt (0-30%). It is also concluded that the method proposed by Olsen (1997) for stress normalization of cone tip resistance compared with the Robertson and Wride (1998) method has better agreement with the obtained results. To evaluate liquefaction potential of loose silty sand, the method presented by Robertson and Wride (1998) is also studied. The results showed that the use of Robertson and Wride (1998) method to estimate the fine content from CPT data causes some uncertainty especially for high silt content (FC>30%).

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The deformation and stiffness characteristics of a cemented gravely sand was investigated using triaxial equipment. The triaxial tests were conducted in both dry and saturated undrained conditions. Artificially cemented samples are prepared using gypsum plaster as the cementing agent. The plaster was mixed with the base soil at the weight percentages of 1.5, 3, 4.5 and 6. The applied confining pressure varied between 25 to 500 kPa in triaxial tests. The process of yielding of the soil was investigated for the considered soil and the bond and final yield points were identified for the cemented soil with different cement contents. The variations of deformation and stiffness parameters with cement content and confining stress were studied as well. Some of the parameters were determined for both drained and undrained conditions to investigate the effect of drainage condition on the stiffness and yield characteristics of the tested cemented gravely sand. According to the results, the difference between drained and undrained tangent stiffness decreases with increase in confining stress. Finally the effect of cement type was investigated as an important parameter affecting the stiffness at bond yield. The rate of increase in tangent stiffness at bond yield changes with cement content for different cementing agents.

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The unique behaviour of carbonate sediments under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties. Their shapes are very different varying from needle shaped to platy shaped. Hence, it is important to examine their fabric effect on soil response under shearing condition. To this aim a series of small scale laboratory element testing were carried out on North Cornwall Rock" beach sand. Non-cemented and cemented Carbonate sand response under compression and extension loading and different initial density and confining pressure with samples allowed to be drained were investigated and compared. The results show that the sand shear strength under Extension loading is lower than compression regarding to anisotropic fabric due to platy and needle shape of grains. The anisotropy is reduced with increasing the confining pressure and initial relative density with non-cemented sand. Furthermore, present of cement bounds reduces the anisotropy especially in low confining pressures.

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There are limitations in experimental studies on sand-gravel mixtures due to the small size of testing

specimens. Due to this problem, many researchers have worked on prediction of the shear strength of mixture by testing

the sandy fraction of soil alone and developed empirical relationships. Most of the previous relationships have been

determined for low surcharge pressures in which particle breakage does not affect the shear strength parameters.

However, the particle breakage affects the relationships in higher confinements. At the present study, the results of

large scale direct shear tests on sand and sand-gravel mixtures was used to investigate the shear behavior and

dilatancy characteristics in a wider range of surcharge pressures. The gravel content, relative density, surcharge

pressure and gravel grain size were considered as variables in testing program. The relationships between shear

strength characteristics of sand and sand-gravel mixtures were determined considering dilation characteristics of the

soil. In this regard, the minimum void ratio was found as a useful indirect index that relates uniquely to the critical

state friction angle independent of soil gradation. The relations between critical state or peak friction angles of the

mixture with minimum void ratio were determined as a function of surcharge pressure. The correlations could be useful

for determination of the strength parameters of sand-gravel composites by testing sandy fraction of mixture.

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Abstract: This paper presents the results of pullout tests on uniaxial geogrid embedded in silica sand under monotonic and cyclic pullout forces. The new testing device as a recently developed automated pullout test device for soil-geogrid strength and deformation behavior investigation is capable of applying load/displacement controlled monotonic/cyclic forces at different rates/frequencies and wave shapes, through a computer closed-loop system. Two grades of extruded HDPE uniaxial geogrids and uniform silica sand are used throughout the experiments. The effects of vertical surcharge, sand relative density, extensibility of reinforcement and cyclic pullout loads are investigated on the pullout resistance, nodal displacement distributions, post-cyclic pullout resistance and cyclic accumulated displacement of the geogrid. Tell-tale type transducers are implemented along the geogrid at several points to measure the relative displacements along the geogrid embedded length. In monotonic tests, decrease in relative displacement between soil and geogrid by increase of vertical stress and sand relative density are the main conclusions structural stiffness of geogrid has a direct effect on pullout resistance in different surcharges. In cyclic tests it is observed that the variation of post-cyclic strength ranges from minus 10% to plus 20% of monotonic strength values and cyclic accumulated displacements are increased as normal pressure increase, but no practical specific comment can be made at this stage on the post-cyclic strength of geogrids embedded in silica sand. It is also observed that in loose sand condition, the cyclic accumulated displacements are considerably smaller as compared to dense sand condition.

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Large size direct shear tests (i.e.300 x 300mm) were conducted to investigate the interaction between clay reinforced with geogrids embedded in thin layers of sand. Test results for the clay, sand, clay-sand, clay-geogrid, sandgeogrid and clay-sand-geogrid are discussed. Thin layers of sand including 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14mm were used to increase the interaction between the clay and the geogrids. Effects of sand layer thickness, normal pressure and transverse geogrid members were studied. All tests were conducted on saturated clay under unconsolidated-undrained (UU) conditions. Test results indicate that provision of thin layers of high strength sand on both sides of the geogrid is very effective in improving the strength and deformation behaviour of reinforced clay under UU loading conditions. Using geogrids embedded in thin layers of sand not only can improve performance of clay backfills but also it can provide drainage paths preventing pore water pressure generations. For the soil, geogrid and the normal pressures used, an optimum sand layer thickness of 10mm was determined which proved to be independent of the magnitude of the normal pressure used. Effect of sand layers combined with the geogrid reinforcement increased with increase in normal pressures. The improvement was more pronounced at higher normal pressures. Total shear resistance provided by the geogrids with transverse members removed was approximately 10% lower than shear resistance of geogrids with transverse members.

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Investigating the parameters influencing the behavior of buried pipelines under dynamic loading is of great

importance. In this study the soil structure interaction of the pipelines with the surrounding soil was addressed using

shaking table tests. Wave propagation along the soil layers was also included in the study. The semi infinite nature of

the field was simulated using a laminar shear box. The soil used in the experiments was Babolsar coastal sand (Iran).

PVC pipes were used due to their analogy with the field. Eight models were constructed with the first four models

having uniform base. In the next models, the non-uniformities of real ground were simulated using a concrete pedestal

installed at the very bottom of the shear box. Pipe deformations under dynamic loading, acceleration distribution in

height, soil settlement and horizontal displacements were measured by strain gauges, acceleratometers and

displacement meters. Analyzing the obtained data, influence of different parameters of dynamic loading such as

acceleration, frequency, soil density, base conditions and shaking direction to pipe axis on the acceleration

amplification ratio and pipe deformation were investigated. Also in order to study the effect of dynamic loading on two

different materials, soil and pipe, the horizontal strains were compared

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This paper discusses the applicability of a simple model to predict pore water pressure generation in non-plastic silty soil during

cyclic loading. Several Stress-controlled cyclic hollow torsional tests were conducted to directly measure excess pore water pressure

generation at different levels of cyclic stress ratios (CSR) for the specimens prepared with different silt contents (SC=0% to 100%).

The soil specimens were tested under three different confining pressures (&sigmaƉ= 60, 120, 240 kPa) at a constant relative density

(Dr=60%), with different silt contents. Results of these tests were used to investigate the behavior of silty sands under undrained

cyclic hollow torsional loading conditions. In general, beneficial effects of the silt were observed in the form of a decrease in excess

pore water pressure and an increase in the volumetric strain. Modified model for pore water pressure generation model based on

the test results are also presented in this paper. Comparison of the proposed pore pressure build up model with seed’s model

indicates the advantage of proposed model for soil with large amount of silt.

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The effects of cementation and the physical properties of grains on the shear behavior of grouted sands are investigated in this

paper. The consolidated-undrained triaxial shear behavior of three grouted carbonate sands with different physical properties,

including particle size distribution, particle shape and void ratio, was studied. Two sands were obtained from the north shores

of the Persian Gulf, south of Iran, called Hormoz and Kish islands sands, and one sand was obtained from the south beaches

of England and called Rock beach sand. The selected sands were grouted using a chemical grout of sodium silicate and tested

after one month of curing. Test results showed that the effect of bonding on the shear behavior and strength depends on the bond

strength and confining pressure. In addition, the shear behavior, yield strength and shear strength of grouted sands under

constant conditions, including the initial relative density, bonds strength, confining pressure and loading, were affected by the

physical properties of the sands. Furthermore, the parameters of the Mohr-Coulomb shear strength failure envelope, including

the cohesion and internal friction angle of grouted sands under constant conditions, were affected by the physical properties

and structure of the soils.

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Shear modulus and damping ratio are important input parameters in dynamic analysis. A series of resonant column tests was

carried out on pure clays and sand-clay mixtures prepared at different densities to investigate the effects of aggregate content,

confining stress, void ratio and clay plasticity on the maximum shear modulus and minimum damping ratio. Test results revealed

an increase in the maximum shear modulus of the mixture with the increase in sand content up to 60%, followed by a decrease

beyond this value. It was also found that the maximum shear modulus increases with confining stress, and decreases with void

ratio. In addition, minimum damping ratio increases with sand content and clay plasticity and decreases with confining stress.

Finally, on the basis of the test results, a mathematical model was developed for the maximum shear modulus.

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The results of laboratory model tests and numerical analysis on circular footings supported on sand bed under incremental

cyclic loads are presented. The incremental values of intensity of cyclic loads (loading, unloading and reloading) were applied

on the footing to evaluate the response of footing and also to obtain the value of elastic rebound of the footing corresponding

to each cycle of load. The effect of sand relative density of 42%, 62%, and 72% and different circular footing area of 25, 50,

and 100cm2 were investigated on the value of coefficient of elastic uniform compression of sand (CEUC). The results show that

the value of coefficient of elastic uniform compression of sand was increased by increasing the sand relative density while with

increase the footing area the value of coefficient of elastic uniform compression of sand was decreases. The responses of footing

and the quantitative variations of CEUC with footing area and soil relative density obtained from experimental results show a

good consistency with the obtained numerical result using “FLAC-3D”.

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Bentonite-sand mixture is one of the most important candidates for engineering buffer element in nuclear waste repositoriesso
the analysis of its thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior is important for design purposes.An innovative setup of classic oedometer
was used for swelling and compression study at high temperatures in this research. A fully calibration program was utilized to
include high temperature effects on measurements. This research shows that the elevation of temperature from 25 to 90◦C in
1:1bentonite-sand mixture in distilled water reduces free swelling potential and strain about 20 percent. The required time for
equalization of swelling is less in high temperature due to increasing in permeability. Also, the high temperature causes increasing
in compressibility rate and quantity for this buffer. For detection of this effect, XRD analysis showed that an increase in
temperature causes a decrease in basal spacing. So, the particles can come near to each other more than lower temperatures and
the amount of absorbed water in the microstructure of the clay is smaller.The effect of thermal history on behavior of bentonitesand
mixture has been showed and tried to clarify it. At similar stress-temperature states, thermal history causes different
deformation in samples. The highest temperature that bentonite has been experienced, controls its behavior in the next thermal
cycles.

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Portland cement can be mixed with sand to improve its mechanical characteristics. Many studies are reported in literature on this topic, but the effect of principal stress rotation has not been investigated yet. Considering the inherent anisotropy of most sands, it is not clear whether the added cement shall contribute to equal increase in strength and stiffness at vertical and horizontal directions or not. Furthermore, it is not well understood how the cement as an additive in non-compacted (loose) sand compared to compacted (dense) sand without cement, contribute to improving the material behavior in undrained condition such as limiting the deformations and the liquefaction potential. In this research, undrained triaxial and simple shear tests under different stress paths are carried out on different mixtures of Portland cement (by adding 1.5, 3 and 5 percent) with clean sand to investigate the effect of principal stress rotations. The triaxial test results revealed that the cement mixture reduces the anisotropy, while it improves the mixture mechanical properties compared to compacted sand without cement. The results of the simple shear tests validated the triaxial test results and further clarified the effect of the  parameter or rotation of principal stresses on the behavior of cemented sand mixtures.

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Soil reinforced with fiber shows characteristics of a composite material, in which fiber inclusion has a significant effect on soil permeability. Concerning to the higher void ratio of carpet fibers, at first stages it may be expected that an increase in fiber content of the reinforced soil would result in an increase in permeability of the mixture. However, the present article demonstrates that fiber inclusion will decrease the permeability of sand-fiber composite.A series of constant head permeability tests have been carried out to show the effects and consequently, a new system of phase relationships was introduced to calculate the dry mass for the sand portion of the composite. Monte Carlo simulation technique adopted with finite element theory was employed to back calculate the hydraulic conductivity of individual porous fibers from the laboratory test results. It was observed that the permeability coefficient of the porous fibers are orders of magnitude less than the skeletal sand portion due to the fine sand particle entrapment and also the fiber volume change characteristics.