Effect of initial relative density on the post-liquefaction behaviour of sand

Understanding the behaviour of soils under cyclic/dynamic loading has been one of the challenging topics in geotechnical engineering. The response of liquefiable soils has been well studied however, the post liquefaction behaviour of sands needs better understanding. In this paper, the post liquefaction behaviour of sands is investigated through several series of multi-stage soil element tests using a cyclic triaxial apparatus. Four types of sand were used where the sands were first liquefied and then monotonically sheared to obtain stress-strain curves. Results of the tests indicate that the stress-strain behaviour of sand in post liquefaction phase can be modelled as a bi-linear curve using three parameters: the initial shear modulus (G1), critical state shear modulus (G2), and post-dilation shear strain (γpost−dilation) which is the shear strain at the onset of dilation. It was found that the three parameters are dependent on the initial relative density of sands. Furthermore, it was observed that with the increase in the relative density both G1 and G2 increase and γpost−dilation decreases. The practical application of the results is to generate p-y curves for liquefied soil.