Sharif Digital Repository

Predictions of soil behavior in response to dynamic loads require an understanding of dynamic properties of soil. Studies on dynamic properties of unsaturated soils at large-strains are quite limited, while some dynamic loadings, like earthquakes, are in the medium to large-strain ranges. A cyclic simple shear apparatus was developed to measure large-strain shear modulus and damping ratio under different matric suction or degree of saturation. Six cyclic tests, with referring to the soil-water retention curve, were conducted on clean medium sand. Results indicated that shear modulus slightly increases when suction varies from zero up to the air entry value. Approaching the residual value, a... 

A conventional triaxial test device was modified to characterize the hydro-mechanical behavior of a loessial soil during isotropic and shear loadings. This device is capable of precise and continuous measurements of water outflow during the application of loading. The tests were performed on "undisturbed" cylindrical specimens, which were taken from loessial deposits in Gorgan, a city in the northeast of Iran. Experimental measurements indicate that the hydro-mechanical behavior of loess is highly affected by the extent of applied mean net stress and the level of suction. During both isotropic and shearing stages of loading, the tested specimens may exhibit collapse, abrupt decrease in... 

This paper is related to the studies taken place during last decade to understand the intact behavior of a Collapsible Loess subjected to loading and wetting at Advanced Soil Mechanics Laboratory of Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. In this regard intact block samples are carefully taken from Hezar Pich Hill in the city of Gorgan, Iran, and various tests are performed on undisturbed specimens recovered from the intact block samples. In this way three automated unsaturated oedometer are built and a conventional triaxial apparatus is upgraded to a fully automated unsaturated triaxial device to accommodate rigorous and different stress and wetting path with continuous data... 

The unsaturated small strain shear modulus, Gmax, is a key reference value in predicting relationships between dynamic shear modulus and shear strain amplitude and is thus a key quantity to properly model the behavior of dynamically-loaded geotechnical systems such as pavements, rail beds, and machine foundations. From the interpretation of the experimental Gmax results for unsaturated soils, different definitions of trends between Gmax and the stress state of the unsaturated soils and material properties are proposed. However, in most of trends, the relationship between the stress state and void ratio is considered and the effect of void ratio on the unsaturated small strain shear modulus... 

In this paper, a large plasticity deformation finite element modeling is presented for three-dimensional dynamic analysis of unsaturated soils with special reference to the failure of lower San Fernando dam under the 1971 earthquake. The finite element method is applied to the governing equations for the spatial discretization, followed by a generalized Newmark scheme used for the time domain discretization. Time stepping scheme is used in the fully implicit coupled method and a direct solution procedure is used for the coupled equation system. The framework of generalized plasticity is presented and the numerical results of unsaturated soils are demonstrated based on the Pastor-Zienkiewicz... 

The small-strain shear modulus Gmax is a key material parameter in modeling the behavior of soils subjected to dynamic loading. Recent experimental results indicate that seasonal weather interaction with near-surface soils causes Gmax to change by up to an order of magnitude in some climates, with a hysteretic response upon drying and wetting. The increase in Gmax during drying and the stiffer response during subsequent wetting have been postulated to be due to plastic hardening during drying. To further understand this behavior, a series of isotropic compression tests were performed on compacted silt specimens at different values of matric suction to evaluate changes in the preconsolidation... 

The seismic behavior of pile-supported systems has been an active area of research over the past decades. However, focus has mostly been on evaluating the seismic response of structures embedded in either dry or fully saturated soil conditions. In this study, series of dynamic centrifuge tests were conducted to investigate the effects of soil's degree of saturation on the seismic behavior of pile-supported superstructures. The scaled physical model tests were carried out on two distinct pile-mass systems embedded in uniform sand layers. A steady state infiltration technique was used to control matric suction profiles in the sand layer prior to shaking. The obtained results from these... 

Flow movement in unsaturated soil can be expressed by a partial differential equation, named Richards equation. The objective of this study is the finding of an appropriate implicit numerical solution for head based Richards equation. Some of the well known finite difference schemes (fully implicit, Crank Nicolson and Runge-Kutta) have been utilized in this study. In addition, the effects of different approximations of moisture capacity function, convergence criteria and time stepping methods were evaluated. Two different infiltration problems were solved to investigate the performance of different schemes. These problems include of vertical water flow in a wet and very dry soils. The...