The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

The behavior of sands under seismic loading conditions

Silver, Marshall L.; Seed, H. Bolton

UCB/EERC-69/16, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1969-12, 1 vol. (480/S54/1969)

The volume change characteristics and the dynamic stress-strain properties of dry sand subjected to cyclic shear strains have been investigated and used to check the applicability of a simple method for predicting the vertical settlements due to compaction in layers of dry cohesionless soils subjected to seismic loading conditions. Dynamic testing of a medium quartz sand was performed using repeated load simple shear equipment. A method for calculating the settlements of sand layers subjected to horizontal accelerations is suggested together with details of a typical analysis. For a variety of test conditions, calculated settlements are compared with measured settlements of one-foot-high layers of sand subjected to horizontal shaking in shaking table tests.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-69-16.pdf (5 MB)