Small and intermediate strain properties of sands containing fines

The goal of this paper is to find the influence of fines content, fc, on the fitting parameters of Hardin's relationship to predict shear modulus and damping ratio at small and intermediate shear strain (G(γ) and η(γ)). Therefore, a series of resonant column tests were conducted on dry Hostun sand mixed with 0, 5, 10, 20, 30 and 40 % of fines content. Tests were carried out using the resonant column device at Ruhr- Universität Bochum. Experimental data on the adopted material revealed that maximum shear modulus decreases with an increase in fc. Analysis of data showed that fitting parameters of Hardin's relationship must be correlated to fc. In addition, experimental results for an intermediate strain region revealed the significant effect of fc on damping ratio and shear modulus. The results showed that damping ratio increased with fines content up to fc = 20 % and then decreases with further increase of fc. Reference shear strain is a key parameter to describe nonlinear behavior of soils and damping ratio. The analyses of results showed that the reference shear strain decreased with fc up to fc = 20 % and it then increases with further increase of fc for the adopted mixtures.