1907 Static Liquefaction Flow Failure of the North Dike of Wachusett Dam

Olson, Scott M.; Stark, Timothy D.; Walton, William H.; Castro, Gonzalo

doi:10.1061/(asce)1090-0241(2000)126:12(1184)

Cited by 86 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…There are cases where instability or static liquefaction occurred under essentially drained conditions. In recent re-analysis of the Wachusett dam failure in 1907, Olson et al (2000) concluded that the failure was mainly triggered by static liquefaction that occurred under completely drained conditions. Through laboratory model tests, Eckersley (1990) observed that the pore water pressure increase in the gentle granular soil slope was a result of, rather than the cause of, flowslide.…”

Section: Other Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand

Chu

Wanatowski

2014

Géotechnique Letters

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Article:Chu, J and Wanatowski, D orcid.org/0000-0002-5809-0374 (2014) Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand. Géotechnique Letters, 4 (1). pp. 57-61.https://doi.org/10.1680/geolett.13.00076 eprints@whiterose.ac.uk https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version -refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher's website. TakedownIf you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing eprints@whiterose.ac.uk including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request.Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand J. CHU* and D. WANATOWSKI{ Static liquefaction has been considered one of the commonest failure mechanisms for granular soil slopes or tailings dams. One of the design approaches adopted is based on the so-called postliquefaction strength as a design parameter. However, determination of the post-liquefaction strength by laboratory tests is problematic. In this paper, experimental data are used to illustrate that the postliquefaction strength cannot be determined properly or uniquely in the laboratory. The assumption of an undrained condition is also questionable for sand or tailings with relatively high permeability under static loading conditions. Due to the above deficiencies, it is recommended that engineers stop using the post-liquefaction strength as a design parameter in practice.

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Section: Other Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand

Chu

Wanatowski

2014

Géotechnique Letters

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“…It implies that pre-failure instability can occur under both drained and undrained conditions and the necessary conditions for undrained and drained instability are the same. This explains why liquefaction under complete drained conditions had ocurred in the Wachuset dam failure (Olson et al, 2000); that is, because a stress path led the stress state into the zone of potential instability. Such a path can be applied to both loose and dense sand.…”

Section: Stress Ratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there are cases where instability has occurred under essentially drained conditions. For example, in the re-analysis of the Wachusett Dam failure in 1907, Olson et al (2000) concluded that the failure was triggered mainly by static liquefaction that occurred under completely drained conditions. Through laboratory model tests, Eckersley (1990) observed that the pore water pressure increase in the gentle granular soil slope was a result, rather than the cause, of flow slide.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting pre-failure instability of sand under plane-strain conditions

Wanatowski¹,

Chu²

2012

Géotechnique

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Experimental data obtained from a plane-strain apparatus are presented in this paper to show that a pre-failure instability in the form of a rapid and sustained increase in strain rate can occur for both contractive and dilative sand under fully drained conditions. However, this type of instability is different from the runaway type of instability observed under undrained conditions, and has therefore been called conditional instability. Despite the differences, the conditions for both types of instability are the same for contractive sand. There are also other factors that affect the pre-failure instability of sand observed in the laboratory. These include the stress ratio, void ratio, sand state, load control mode and reduction rate of the effective confining stress. In this paper, these factors are discussed and analysed using experimental data obtained from undrained instability (or creep) tests and constant shear drained (CSD) tests carried out under plane-strain conditions. KEYWORDS: failure; laboratory tests; liquefaction; pore pressures; sands; slopes Cette communication présente des données expérimen-tales obtenues avec un appareil à déformation plane dans le but de démontrer qu'une instabilité pré-rupture, sous forme d'une augmentation rapide et soutenue de la vitesse de déformation, peut se produire pour des sables en contractif et dilatif, en présence d'un drainage inté-gral. Toutefois, ce type d'instabilité se distingue du type d'instabilité galopante relevée en présence de conditions non drainées, et a été dénommé, pour cette raison, instabilité conditionnelle. En dépit des différences, les conditions propres à ces deux types d'instabilité sont les mêmes pour le sable contractif. D'autres facteurs égale-ment affectent l'instabilité pré-rupture du sable, observée en laboratoire. Parmi ceux-ci, indiquons le rapport des contraintes, l'état du sable, le mode de contrôle de la charge, et le taux de réduction des contraintes de confinement efficaces. Dans la présente communication, on discute et on analyse ces facteurs sur la base de données expérimentales obtenues avec des essais d'instabilité non drainée (ou de fluage) et des essais de cisaillement constant drainés (CSD), effectués en présence de déforma-tions planes.

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“…Liquefaction may occur under static and seismic loading. For instance, slope failure at hill side and embankment due to heavy rain or dam [1] and tailing disposal failure [2] for non-cyclic loading are also liquefaction, which is termed as static liquefaction. From the experiences of past earthquakes, it is found that sandy deposits which contain significant amount of fine-grains (silty sands, clayey sands) and/or gravel liquefy during earthquakes and cause lateral spreading [3][4][5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of nonplastic silt content on undrained shear strength of sand–silt mixtures

Karim

Alam

2017

Geo-Engineering

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IntroductionNonplastic silt is a common alluvial deposit in the flood plain of Bangladesh. It is finer than sand and behaves like sand but different from elastic silt and clay. Sand and nonplastic silt are liquefiable whereas clay and elastic silt are not liquefiable. On the other hand, nonplastic silt content in sand-silt mixtures controls the behavior of the soil under monotonic and cyclic loading. Many researches are found in literature on the effect of nonplastic silt content in sand-silt mixtures. But, their findings are sometimes contradicts each other. Therefore, it is necessary to study the topic more. Moreover, design engineers are not aware of the behavior of nonplastic silt-sand mixtures.As a result of build-up of excess pore water pressure, the effective confining pressure decreases σ ′ = σ − u triggering liquefaction. Due to the lack of drainage within very short time during earthquake, this phenomenon mainly occurs and thus the undrained testing is commonly employed by the researchers to study the liquefaction behavior of soil. AbstractTo assess the behavior of sand-silt mixtures, strain-controlled monotonic triaxial tests were conducted on sand-silt mixtures of specimen size 71 mm in diameter and 142 mm in height at various relative densities but same isotropic effective confining pressure of 100 kPa. Concept of limiting fines content (LFC) was verified by these undrained monotonic triaxial tests. LFC was found to be the very important parameter to understand the behavior of sand-silt mixtures. The behavior of sand-silt mixture changes approximately at LFC. At constant relative density, increase in silt content decreases the undrained peak shear strength till LFC. After LFC the strength becomes near about same till pure silt sample. The reason of behavior could not be explained. At constant global void ratio, the peak shear strength decreases with increase in silt content till LFC and for further increment of silt content the peak shear strength increases. Sand-silt mixtures containing certain amount of silt which is near to the LFC showed flow type as well as brittle behavior. Failure of structure on this type of soil will be catastrophic during earthquake. In the case of permeability decreased with increasing silt content up to LFC. After the LFC, dry density is decreasing with increasing silt content but permeability remains constant till pure silt.Keywords: Liquefaction, Nonplastic silt, Peak shear strength, Limiting fines content, Relative density Open Access© The Author(s) 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Karim and Alam Geo-Engineering (2017) Karim and Alam Geo-Engineering (2017) 8:14 Liquefaction behavior by cyclic loading wa...

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1907 Static Liquefaction Flow Failure of the North Dike of Wachusett Dam

Cited by 86 publications

References 17 publications

Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand

Difficulties in the determination of post-liquefaction strength for sand

Factors affecting pre-failure instability of sand under plane-strain conditions

Effect of nonplastic silt content on undrained shear strength of sand–silt mixtures

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