Influence of sand origin and mineralogy on liquefaction resistance

Abstract

The available methods in the literature to assess liquefaction resistance of sands are based on studies using terrigenous sands withsilica or quartzitic mineralogy. This is in part because terrigenous sands are the most abundant. However, there are other kinds ofsands, in terms of origin, mineralogy and grain shape, for which their liquefaction susceptibility has not been studied in enoughdetail. This paper tries to fill this knowledge gap by presenting results of a detailed experimental program carried out to determinethe liquefaction resistance of uncemented calcareous sand. This study involved mineralogical characterization, main indexproperties determination, critical state line, and undrained cyclic triaxial tests with isotropic consolidation on the calcareous sand.For comparison purposes, similar tests were performed on Ottawa standard silica sand. The results showed that the calcareoussands exhibited higher liquefaction resistance than silica sand, when tested under similar test conditions. Significant differenceswere also observed in terms of pore pressure generation and accumulation of axial strain during the undrained cyclic loading phaseof the triaxial tests.