Cyclic response and modeling of saturated silty clay due to fluctuations in reservoir water level of the Three Gorges Dam, China

The deformation characteristics of soil obtained from landslides at the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir have been examined. Due to the annual fluctuation in the water level of the reservoir, landslides around the Three Gorges Dam Reservoir are subjected to cyclic loading. Laboratory triaxial tests have been carried out on silty clay specimens subjected to cyclic changes in pore water pressure. The test results indicate that when the soil is subjected to repeated unloading–reloading with constant deviatoric stress in an overconsolidated state, the silty clay material shows inelastic deformation with the accumulation of irrecoverable strain. To capture this behavior, a constitutive model has been developed to simulate the deformation induced by changes in pore water pressure. This model is based on a modification of Yao et al. (2009)'s model to include the effect of cyclic loading. The model has been used to calculate the shear strain during cyclic loading and for a comparison with the laboratory test results. It has been shown that the proposed model is capable of capturing the deformation response of landslide soil subjected to changes in pore water pressure caused by the fluctuating water level of the reservoir.