By using the soil static and dynamic universal triaxial and torsional shear apparatus, a series of combined cyclic shear tests are performed to simulate the rotation in the principal stress direction induced by ocean wave. The tests include the cyclic preloading tests and liquefaction tests in the second loading on saturated loose sand with a relative density of 30%. The all tests are consolidated under isotropic condition. The effect of the cyclic preloading on the resistance to liquefaction of saturated loose sands under the condition of continuous rotation in the principal stress direction is investigated. Experimental data indicate that the void ratio of saturated sands has a negligible reduction after cyclic preloading. With the increase of the intensity of cyclic preloading (in the amplitude and in the number of cycles), the resistance to liquefaction in the second loading is increased continuously under the condition that the liquefaction does not occur during the cyclic preloading. The reason is that the construction of more stable structure due to the uniformity of the void and the better interlocking of the particles when the cyclic preloading is applied to the saturated sand.
Stiffness degradation will occur due to the generation of accumulated pore pressure in saturated soft clays under cyclic loading. The soil static-dynamic multi-purpose triaxial and torsional shear apparatus in Dalian University of Technology was employed to perform different types of test on the saturated soft marine clay in the Yangtze Estuary. Undisturbed samples of the clay were subjected to undrained cyclic vertical and torsional coupling shear and cyclic torsional shear after three-directional anisotropic consolidation with different initial consolidation parameters. Investigated were the effects of the initial orientation angle of the major principal stress, initial ratio of deviatoric stress, initial coefficient of intermediate principal stress and continuous rotation of principal stress axes on the stiffness degradation. It is found that the degradation index decreases （or degradation degree increases） significantly with increasing initial orientation angle of the major principal stress and initial ratio of deviatoric stress. Compared with the effects of the initial orientation angle of the major principal stress and initial ratio of deviatoric stress, the effect of initial coefficient of intermediate principal stress is less evident and this trend is more clearly reflected by the results of the cyclic torsional shear tests than those of the cyclic coupling shear tests. At the same cycle number, the degradation index obtained from the cyclic torsional shear test is higher than that from the cyclic coupling shear test. The main reason is that the continuous rotation in principal stress directions during cyclic coupling shear damages the original structure of the soil more than the cyclic torsional shear does.Based on a series of experiments, a mathematical model for stiffness degradation is proposed and the relevant parameters are determined.
Presented in this paper is a three-dimensional plastic limit analysis method of bearing capacity of the deeply-embedded large-diameter cylindrical structure in the cross-anisotmpic soft ground. The most likely failure mechanism is assumed to be of a composite rupture surface which is composed of an individual wedge in the passive zone or two wedges in both active and passive zones near the mudline, depending on the separation or bonding state at the interface between the cylindrical structure and neighboring soils in the active wedge, and a truncated spherical slip surface at the base of the cylinder when the structure tends to overturn around a point located on the symmetry axis of the structure. The cylindrical structure and soil interaction system under consideration is also numerically analyzed by the finite element method by virtue of the general-purpose FEM software ABAQUS, in which the soil is assumed to obey tie Hill＇s criterion of yield. Both the failure mechanism assumed and the plastic limit analysis predictions are validated by numerical computations based on FEM. For the K0-consolidated ground of clays typically with anisotropic undrained strength property, it is indicated through a parametric study that limit analysis without consideration of anisotropy of soil overestimates the lateral ultimate bearing capacity of a deeply-embedded cylindrical structure in soft ground in a certain condition.
