Evolution law of small strain shear modulus of expansive soil: From a damage perspective

It is of great significance to study the nonlinear evolution law of the small strain shear modulus of expansive soil for analyzing the deformation behavior of soil or geotechnical structure and the seismic site response. Existing studies rarely discuss the damage mechanism of the small strain shear modulus of expansive soil, and the corresponding damage model describing the small strain stiffness decay law is lacking. In this study, a series of resonance column tests were carried out to investigate the effects of mean effective stress, loading and unloading stress paths and vibration cycles on the nonlinear decay law of small strain shear modulus of expansive soil, and the damage mechanism was discussed in detail. Subsequently, a novel damage model describing the decay law of small strain shear modulus of expansive soil was proposed and verified by the results of resonant column tests. The results show that the decay process of the small strain shear modulus with the shear strain is essentially the damage of the soil structure, which can be characterized mathematically by damage model. The mean effective stress and the larger overconsolidation ratio caused by the unloading process can inhibit the damage, while the vibration cycles can cause small reduction in small strain shear modulus and promote the damage. The proposed damage model with clear physical meaning can well describe the evolution law of small strain shear modulus of expansive soil, and has higher accuracy than the traditional model.