ABSTRACT

Recent experiments involving loosely deposited silty sands dispute the assumption that clean sands always behave similar to silty sands. The tests on loose silty sand indicate a ‘reverse’ behavior with respect to confining pressure and this violates the basic assumption that loose, silty sands behave similar to loose, clean sands. There is a strong correlation between fines content, compressibility and liquefaction potential of these soils. A procedure for analysis and evaluation of static liquefaction of slopes of fine sand and silt such as submarine slopes, mine tailings, and spoil heaps is presented. This procedure involves determination of the region of instability in stress space in which potential liquefaction may be initiated for the soil in question and determination of the state of stress in the slope. It is explained how the instability line and the region in which potential liquefaction may be initiated can be determined from consolidated-undrained triaxial compression tests, and a straightforward method of finding the state of stress is employed to predict the region of potential liquefaction in simple slopes.