SAND BEHAVIOR CHARACTERIZATION FOR VARIOUS GRAIN SIZE

DISTRIBUTIONS

SITI KHALIJAH BINTI ABD RAHMAN

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

SAND BEHAVIOR CHARACTERIZATION FOR VARIOUS GRAIN SIZE

DISTRIBUTIONS

SITI KHALIJAH BINTI ABD RAHMAN

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of

Master of Engineering (Civil – Geotechnics)

Faculty of Civil Engineering

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

APRIL 2010

iii

Dedicated to my beloved father and mother, Abd Rahman Bin Alias and Zainap Binti

Abdul Ghani, All my sisters and brother ( Monnaliza, Norsuriya and Mohd Rizal).

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to thank Allah the Almighty for His guidance

and help in giving me the strengths to complete this thesis. In particularly, I would like

to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Dr Mokhammad Farid Ma’ruf for

the encouragement, knowledge, motivation, patience and time in helping me along the

preparations of this thesis.

Thank are due to all the staff of Geotechnical Laboratory, Faculty of Civil

Engineering, UTM, especially to Mr. Zulkifli , who are willing to provide assistance at

various occasions.

Last but not least, I warmly thank my family and close friends of mine for their

love, patience and encouragement during those stressful times. Their views and tips are

useful indeed. Without their continued support and interest, this project would not have

been the same as presented here. A lot of thank for all parties have been contributed

directly and indirectly.

v

ABSTRACT

The enormous amount of work done so far do not much elaborate the

relationships both density and fabric to grain size distribution. The main

objective of this study is to investigate sand behavior characterization for various

grain size distributions. Grain size distribution curves are develop from the sieve

analysis. A series of laboratory test has been carried out shows that grain size

distributions make an effect on sand behavior characterization. 2 sample of well

graded and 1 sample of uniform sample have been tested under wide range of

laboratory conditions. Consolidated undrained triaxial test on granular soils have

been systematically carried out. The various of stress-strain relationship has been

develop during this study. Results of the test clearly indicate that, well graded

soil sample have higher strength value than the uniform soil sample. Liquefaction

strength of coarse grains may be roughly evaluated by the index of relative

density (Dr). despite large different in particle gradations. One of most important

mechanisms in the deformation of coarse grains is the relative sliding between

particles.

vi

ABSTRAK

Sejumlah besar kerja yang dilakukan tidak banyak menjelaskan hubungan antara

kepadatan dan bentuk agihan butiran. Tujuan utama kajian adalah untuk mengetahui

hubungan antara ciri pasir berdasarkan kepada agihan pelbagai saiz butiran. Graf agihan

butiran dapat dilakukan berdasarkan kepada analisis ayakan kering. Ujian makmal

dilakukan untuk mengetahui bahawa agihan saiz butiran menberi kesan kepada ciri pasir.

Dua jenis sampel dihasilkan untuk menjalankan projek ini iaitu sampel yang mempunyai

saiz butiran yang berbeza dan sampel yang mempunyai saiz butiran yang seragam. Ujian

CU dilakukan dengan bersistematik untuk mendapatkan keputusan yang baik. Hasil

daripada ujian yang dilakukan pelbagai hubungan tegangan-regangan dapat dihasilkan.

Keputusan ujian jelas menunjukkan bahawa sampel yang mempunyai saiz butiran yang

berbeza mempunyai kekuatan yang lebih tinggi daripada sampel yang mempunyai saiz

yang seragam. Likuifakasi kekuatan butiran yang kasar boleh dinilai dengan indeks

relatif (Dr) . salah satu mekanisme penting dalam deformasi butiran adalah sifat butiran

dan gelongsoran antara zarah.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

TITLE OF PROJECT i

DECLARATION ii

DEDICATION iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

ABSTRACT v

ABSTRAK vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

LIST OF SYMBOLS xiv

LIST OF APPENDICES xvi

viii

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study 1

1.2 Problem Statement 3

1.3 Objectives 4

1.4 Scope of Study 4

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction 6

2.2 Soil Texture 7

2.2.1 Coarse Grained Soils 8

2.3 Grain Size and Grain Size Distribution 9

2.3.1 Criteria of Grading 11

2.4 Triaxial Shear Test 12

2.4.1 Types of Triaxial Tests 14

2.5 Porosity 15

2.6 Sand Behavior 16

2.7 Dilatancy 19

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 Introduction 20

3.2 Literature Review 21

3.3 Laboratory Experiment 21

ix

3.3.1 Particle Size Distribution 22

3.3.1.1 Sieve Analysis (Dry Sieving Method) 22

3.3.2 Specific Gravity 26

3.3.3 Relative Density 27

3.4 Triaxial Test 30

3.5 Data Analysis 36

4 ANALYSES AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

4.1 Introduction 37

4.2 Soil Properties 38

4.3 Sieve Analysis (Dry Sieving) 39

4.4 Result of Triaxial Test Under Condolidated Undrained

(CU) 40

4.4.1 Relative Density (76%-100%) – Dense Sand 41

4.4.2 Relative Density (45%-65%) – Medium Sand

43

4.4.3 Relative Density (5%-33%) – Loose Sand 46

5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

5.1 Conclusion 50

5.2 Recommendation for Future Study 51

x

REFERENCES 53

Appendix 56-91

xi

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 Textural and Other Characteristics of Soils 8

3.1 Minimum Mass of Sampling to be taken for Sieving 24

4.1 Soil Properties 38

4.2 Summary of Data for Specific Gravity 39

xii

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 Typical Grain Size Distribution 11

2.2 Measurement of Porosity 16

2.3 The Result of Drained Triaxial Test for Loose Sample 17

2.4 The Result of Drained Triaxial Test for Dense Sample 17

2.5 The Result of Undrained Triaxial Test 18

3.1 A set of Sieve 25

3.2 Specific Gravity Apparatus 26

3.3 Relative Density Apparatus 29

3.4 Typical Triaxial Cell 35

4.1 Grain Size Distribution Curves of Test Sands 40

4.2 Deviator Stress Versus Axial Strain Relationship for Dense Sand 41

xiii

4.3 Effective Stress Path on (p) versus Deviator Stress (q).for Dense Sand

42

4.4 Variation of Pore Pressure with Axial Strain for Dense Sand 43

4.5 Deviator Stress versus Axial Strain Relationship for Medium Sand 44

4.6 Effective Stress Path on (p) versus Deviator Stress (q) for Medium Sand

45

4.7 Variation of Pore Pressure with Axial Strain for Medium Sand 46

4.8 Deviator Stress versus Axial Strain Relationship for Loose Sand 47

4.9 Effective Stress Path on (p) versus Deviator Stress (q) for Loose Sand

48

4.10 Variation of Pore Pressure with Axial Strain for Loose Sand 49

xiv

LIST OF SYMBOLS

ρb = Bulk density

ρd = Dry density

γw = Unit weight of water

γd = Dry unit weight

Cu = Uniformity coefficient

Cz = Curvature coefficient

Vs = Void of soil

εa = Axial strain

q = Deviator stress

p = Effective Stress Path

e = Void ratio

Dr = Relative density

Gs = Specific gravity

xv

ρs = Particle density

μm = micrometer

xvi

LIST OF APPENDICES

APPENDIX TITLE PAGE

A Sample

B Shearing of sample

C Data

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Sand, one of the most basic mineral formations on the planet, can be

found in some capacity in every country, temperate zone, geographical region

and continent around the globe. Sand is defined as a naturally occurring granular

material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.

Sands behavior under loading is susceptible to deal with the failures of

earth related structures. The investigation of upper and lower San Fernando

Dams failure (Seed at al.1975; Ming and Li, 2004), Immogawa river dams

landslide (Marui and Yoshimatsu, 2007), landslide at Chuetsu Region during

Mid-Niigata earthquake (2004), Macchu Pichu World Heritage landslides (Sassa

et al. 2005) and El Salvador landslide hazard (Rodriguez et al, 2006) were

2

revealed better knowledge regarding factors behind the failures. These failures

were triggered either by earthquake or by monotonic loading. However, a salient

outcome from these investigations was that the sands responsible to develop

these earth related structures failures.

Sands behavior during loading extends several phenomena. Flow

deformation, dilatancy, critical state and steady state condition, transformation

phase are the important ones that have to be concerned. In fact, it is well known

that sands behavior depend on density, initial pressure, initial fabric and stress

history. The evidence of close relation of sand shear strength to its initial density,

initial pressure and stress history was identified by many researchers (Bopp and

Lade, 2005; Verdugo and Ishihara, 1996; Yoshimine et al., 1998). Moreover,

Cubrinovski and Ishihara (1998) revealed dilative and contractive behavior when

applied loading to various combination of initial density and initial pressure.

The density of sands has correlation with its gradation. Recent works of

Aberg (1996a);Aberg (1996b); Ng et al. (2006); Aberg (1992); Santamarina and

Cho (2004) and Ozgurel et al. (2004) are among others who succeed to explore

this correlation. Miura and Toki (1982) and Tatsuoka et al. (1986) did similar

works to investigate the effects of sample preparation on shear strength and

deformation of several types of natural sands having different grain size

distribution. They concluded that various sample preparation will produce

various porosity and fabric to develop completely different response during

loading for each gradation. However, the relation of gradation and initial density

to its fabric remained unclear. The works of Sulaiman et al. (2007) and Sulaiman

(2008) modeled void ratio sediment based on its gradation.

3

The enormous amount of work done so far do not much elaborate the

relationships both density and fabric to grain size distribution. Better knowledge

on the relationships among them helps one to predict sands behavior during

loading. In the proposed research work, the influence of gradation to sands

behavior phenomena such as dilatancy, steady state, transformation phase and

flow deformation will be clarified through the direct shear and triaxial test at

wide spread condition. The result of this work will present better guidance for

geotechnical engineer to interpret properly when they deal with soil, especially

sands.

1.2 Problem Statement

The differentiation among different kind of soil is necessary in order to

help geotechnical engineers to judge properly when dealing with soils because

soils has wide spread behavior. However, relative density alone is not a good

parameter from engineering view since it neglect to pressure state (Alarcon-

Gusman et al. 1998, Konrad 1991)1.

Since then the attempt to find a single parameter to take account the effect

of relative density and confining pressure has been started. Been and Jefferies

(1985) introduced a scalar parameter called state parameter ψ that consider the

1 Alarcon-Gusman et al. 1998, Konrad 1991

4

effect of the relative density and confining pressure using steady state line (SSL).

The state parameter is a measure of vertical distance of current void ratio from

the steady state line in the e − I1 line. The definition of state parameter postulates

that sands will have similar behavior if the different between the current void

ratio and its corresponding steady state void ratio is identical. The state parameter

was the remarkable parameter in characterizing sands behavior.

1.3 Objectives

The main objective of this study is to carry out a comprehensive study on

the sands behavior due to various gradations. This includes the evaluation of flow

deformation, dilatancy, phase transformation and steady state phenomena.

Clarification of the relation among gradation, porosity and sands behavior during

loading is also included. The specific objectives of the study are:

i. To evaluation of the grain size distribution effects on sands behavior

under loading

ii. To clarification of the relation among grain size distribution, porosity and

sands behavior

iii. To characterization of sands behavior based on grain size distribution and

porosity.

5

1.4 Scope of Study

This study is focus on the sand behavior characterization for various of

grain size distributions. The sand sample is industrial sands composed of natural

grains. Triaxial test will be conducted to achieve the research objectives.

SitiKhalijahAbdMFKA2010ASitiKhalijahAbdMFKA2010bSitiKhalijahAbdMFKA2010C