The effects of initial static deviatoric stress on liquefaction and pre-failure deformation characteristics of saturated sand under cyclic loading

Initial static deviatoric stress can affect the liquefaction behaviour and deformation characteristics of saturated sand under cyclic loading. A series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed on a saturated sand consolidated under a constant vertical stress but different lateral stresses. The dependence of failure mechanism, liquefaction resistance, and stiffness evolution of the sand on initial static deviatoric stress ratio was investigated on medium dense to dense sand samples (Dr = 0.44 to 0.82). The pre-failure deformation and the direction of strain accumulation were analysed under different static deviatoric stress ratios. The results indicate that under cyclic loading with stress reversal condition, the effective mean stress in the samples could reduce to zero, which leads to cyclic mobility failure and completely loss of stiffness due to liquefaction. The stress state after cyclic loading could be above critical state line. Under non reversal loading condition, however, the effective mean stress cannot reduce to zero and therefore the samples fail under shear due to large strain accumulation. In this condition, the stress state at the end of the cyclic loading is approximately at the critical state line and hardly affected by initial deviatoric stress. The failure resistance of medium dense to dense sand is not greatly affected by initial static deviatoric stress until it is large enough to meet non-reverse loading condition. The ratio of axial stain to excess pore water pressure accumulation (or Delta epsilon acc a/Delta epsilon acc v) increases with the average static deviatoric stress ratio eta av. The strain accumulation direction roughly follows the flow rule of Modified Cam Clay model, independent of relative density and failure mechanism.