Sharif Digital Repository

Shear modulus and damping ratio are the most important parameters for evaluating and designing the performance of geotechnical systems under dynamic loads. According to the definition, the secant shear modulus is the slope of the hysteresis shear stress-shear strain loop. Also, the damping ratio indicates the dissipation of wave energy during propagation in the soil. This research presents an experimental laboratory study on the effect of non-plastic fines content and hydraulic hysteresis on the Gmax of unsaturated sand-silt mixtures. A significant part of the previous research has been done to determine Shear modulus and damping ratio parameters. It has been done in completely saturated or... 

Loess with a dispersion potential is one of the problematic soils of Iran. This study aims to investigate the impact of dispersion potential on the water flow in a three-phase medium and determine the effect of salinity on the stability of an unsaturated railway embankment by employing the soil-water retention curves of the materials. To satisfy this objective, the natural dispersive loess of the Chabahar region is desalinated in this study and the hydraulic properties of both saline and desalinated soils are comprehensively investigated. First, the soil-water retention curves of the materials are measured through the filter paper test method. Afterward, the saturated hydraulic conductivity... 

Loess soil layers in semi-arid to arid areas have been deposited through the accumulation of aeolian sediments, resulted in a special metastable and open structure being usually unsaturated in nature. Since naturally occurred loess is widespread, it has been recently considered as a promising resource for constructing earth-fill structures. However, due to different microstructures of intact and recompacted loess, different responses to hydraulic and mechanical loading would be expected. Up to now, the hydro-mechanical behavior of loess from different perspectives has not been linked to its microstructural characteristics. The current research, therefore, aims to provide insight into the... 

In many of the geotechnical engineering projects, such as embankments in earth dams and roads, the soil bears anisotropic loading. Even that the behavior of this material depends on the anisotropic loading, not many researches have investigated the effects of this phenomenon. The main objective of this research is investigation the effect of anisotropic loading induced by rotation angel of principal axes parameter under unsaturated conditions. Hence, shear strength of firoozkooh silt, in terms of deviatoric stress at failure under monotonic loading under different values of rotation angel of principal stress axes parameter and confining stress have been studied. For this purpose, silty... 

The increase in the amount of groundwater exploitation and climate changes has made land subsidence into one of the environmental problems and has caused many problems in various infrastructures such as urban areas, residential buildings, and vital arteries such as power transmission lines. Many areas of the country, especially areas with smooth topography such as plains where alluvium accumulates, due to excessive exploitation of groundwater resources and climate changes, are facing a decrease in the level of groundwater, an increase in the thickness of the unsaturated layer, and as a result, progressive subsidence. In particular, the destructive effects of land subsidence on power... 

Oil pollutants are among the important sources of pollution in countries with oil and gas industries such as Iran. Soil pollution by these pollutants is one of the environmental issues and hazards. All kinds of organic and inorganic pollutants in the soil may penetrate the underground water or enter the atmosphere in the form of gas, which respectively enters the food chain through absorption by plants or enter the body of living organisms through breathing. They include humans, which are a threat to the health and life of living beings. For example, many of these pollutions cause diseases such as cancer, suppression of the body's immune system, or even obesity; therefore, it is necessary to... 

Although unsaturated soils exist all around the world, civil engineers are not familiar with unsaturated soil behavior; consequently, the soil structures they design may neither be safe nor economical. Thus, implementing unsaturated soil constitutive models to practical computer softwares can be very beneficial for geotechnical engineers. Geotechnical engineering softwares normally consider soil in saturated or dry conditions. So, their built-in constitutive models do not usually consider unsaturated soils. In this study, Barcelona Basic Model (BBM), which is developed using critical states soils mechanics principles, is implemented to the FLAC2D software. This model can simulate complex... 

The mechanical behavior of unsaturated soils is much more complex than saturated soils and the effective stress principle cannot be initially applied to them. The soils found in most parts of Tehran, Iran, are unsaturated and this underlines the importance of having access to softwares capable of analyzing such soils; despite the fact that most available softwares are unable to do so. This thesis aims at adding one of the common unsaturated soil models to a geotechnical software and use that to model and analyze earth structures such as earth dams, foundations, embankments, etc. The Wheeler model (2003) for unsaturated soils is used in this study. This model takes advantage of two... 

In this research an analytical and semi analytical solution to the differential eqautions derived from coupled analysis of heat transfer, moisture transfer and solid deformation in porous materials is presented. In first section, differential equations derived from Hydro-mechanical analysis of an unsaturated soil layer with limited thickness was considered and it is assumed that pore air pressure is equal to atmospheric pressure. To solve the system of equations laplace transform is used.In second section, the effect of daily changes in temperature on transient heat and moisture transfer in semi infinite layer is studied in three dimension. Energy conservation equation and pore liquid mass... 

Given that highly deformable natural deposits such as collapsible and swelling soils make up more than one-fifth of the land surface and are generally in unsaturated conditions, behavioral measurement of this type of soil including accurate measurement of its hydraulic properties is important. The challenges of designing and implementing construction infrastructure, along with the most reported financial losses due to the presence of these soils, double the importance of studying the behavior of these soils. The large volume changes of these soils in contact with water (equivalent to a volumetric strain of more than 5%) has been a major challenge for researchers in predicting the... 

Shear modulus and confined modulus are important parameters for static and dynamic analysis in geotechnical applications. Elastoplastic and nonlinear constitutive models has been formulized by these parameters. Cyclic simple shear apparatus had been developed by mounting bender element and ultrasonic sensor to measure continuous shear wave and pressure wave velocities for determination of G_max and M.For this purpose two new pedestals have been fabricated on which HAE ceramic disc and sensors were mounted. A pressure control panel and a hanging column system have been designed to apply high and low matric suction with high accuracy.At first two small strain tests were conducted for... 

The main purpose of this study is to develop the Hollow Cylinder Apparatus (HCA) for unsaturated testing on granular materials and to investigate the effect of stress anisotropy on dynamic parameters of soils like shear modulus and damping ratio. Direction of loading and the magnitude of intermediate principal stress have significant effect on the anisotropic response of soils. In many of in-situ loading the direction of major principal stress does not coincide with deposition direction of soil or because of the three dimensional loading condition of soil, the effect of the intermediate principal stress cannot be ignored. On the other hand, in many areas, soils are in unsaturated condition.... 

Evaluation of the seismic-induced settlement of an unsaturated soil layer depends on several variables, among which the small strain shear modulus, Gmax, and soil’s state of stress have been demonstrated to be of particular significance. Recent interpretation of trends in Gmax revealed considerable effects of the degree of saturation and hydraulic hysteresis on the shear stiffness of soils in unsaturated states. Accordingly, the soil layer is expected to experience different settlement behaviors depending on the soil saturation and seasonal weathering conditions. In this study, a semi-empirical formulation was adapted to extend an existing Gmax model to infer hysteretic effects along... 

Loess as a kind of collapsible soils is a well-known Aeolian deposit, which is characterized by some specific Engineering properties including high initial void ratio, relatively low initial density and water content and high percentage of fine-grained particles. Collapsible soils such as loess, sustain large stress under dry condition. However, they experience a high and sudden decrease in their volume by reaching to their critical moisture content. As a result, their natural condition is not suitable for construction works if the possibility of the exposure of the soil to excessive water is present. This research presents the utilization of an innovative method for stabilization and... 

Shear modulus and damping ratio are the most important parameters for evaluating the performance of geotechnical systems under seismic and dynamic loads. According to the definition, secant shear modulus is the slope of the hysteresis shear stress-shear strain loop and damping ratio indicates the dissipation of wave energy during propagation in the soil. These parameters depend on stress state, shear strain and void ratio of the soil. Shear strain amplitude has an important effect on the behavior of shear modulus and damping ratio and it is necessary to study the behavior of these parameters in the range of small to large strains. In addition to dynamic loading, climate change and wet and... 

Shear modulus and damping ratio are of the most important parameters for geotechnical structures during dynamic and seismic loading. Secant shear modulus is the slope of hysteresis shear stress-shear strain loop, and damping ratio is indicative of dissipation of waves energy during propagation in the soil. These parameters mainly depend on void ratio, stress state, and shear strain of the soil. Climate changes cause some drying and wetting process which changes the soil state from saturated to unsaturated form. Previous researches indicated that the shear modulus and damping ratio change with the amount of matric suction. During the drying process, the matric suction increases,therefore,... 

The subsidence phenomenon in the past years has caused many problems and issues for the agricultural lands, roads, power transmission lines, energy etc., due to different reasons including over use of groundwater resources and changes in climate. This phenomenon has been observed in different plains of the country including the Khorasan, Kerman, Hamedan, Ghazvin and Isfahan plains and has caused many damages to infrastructure and agricultural products in the mentioned regions. In this research the main factors which have affected the subsidence phenomenon especially reduced ground water table and climate changes in Ardebil plain, are taken into account and some studies which comprise... 

A physical model has been developed in the advanced soil mechanic lab of the sharif university of technology. This model has been used to investigate the thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of the group energy pile, which was embedded in the unsaturated silty sand soil. This model contains a steel soil box, 4 aluminum piles, strain gauges, the total pressure cells, the thermocouples, and the mechanical load. Three sets of tests were conducted on these piles. In the first the thermal cycles were applied on 1 pile and in the second and third tests, the number of the energy piles was 2 and 3, respectively. The result has shown there was a permanent settlement at the end of the thermal cycles.... 

In geotechnical engineering, collapsible soils as a part of problematic soils has an extreme importance since as a mutual effects of applying load and increasing their water content, Soil’s inter-particle forces become weak, and therefore, the soil experiences sudden large volumetric change known as collapse. Foundations built on these soils might experience sudden, large settlement. Collapsible soils exist in almost all continents, and many damages are reported due to the collapse phenomenon of these soils.
Due to the importance of this issue, and lack of comprehensive studies related to the volumetric and shear behavior of these soils, in this study, triaxial wetting test are performed... 

Wide lands in IRAN are covered by the “Hydro – Collapsible” soils. These types of soils possess high apparent shear strength in their natural condition but are highly susceptible to volume collapse upon wetting. This behavior is generally attributed to their open, unstable soil fabric and their weak inter-particle bonding forces, which together yield a soil void structure that is susceptible to collapse.
Previous studies rarely investigated the roles of stress state level, matric suction and stress path on the hydro-mechanical nature of the collapse phenomenon. Also most studies dealt with conducting laboratory tests on remolded soil specimens through which the role of natural soil...