Evaluation of Instability Phenomena in Sands: Plane Strain Versus Triaxial Conditions

Extensive research was carried out in the 1950s on theories of plasticity to extend the concepts developed for metals to materials that failed according to the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. The new ideas made it possible to merge the two distinct concepts (strength and deformation techniques) into one that relies on better understanding of plasticity and resulted in a rapid growth in the field of constitutive modeling of soil behavior. At the same time advanced experimental apparatuses and laboratory procedures were developed to calibrate the models. However, most laboratory experiments on granular materials are performed under Conventional Triaxial Conditions (CTC) for the purposes of evaluating constitutive behavior and stability properties, whereas most geotechnical field problems are closer to the Plane Strain (PS) condition. The triaxial tests performed in most laboratories comprise a simplification over in situ states and allow easier and robust experimentation. Most landslide problems, failure of soils beneath shallow and deep foundations, and failure of retaining structures, are cases that can generally be considered as plane strain. Strength and deformation characteristics of granular materials loaded in plane strain may be considerably different from those observed in CTC. Most studies on sands were limited to evaluating the constitutive behavior and in some cases extended to briefly describing the associated instability phenomena. This paper presents the results of a series of PS and CTC experiments performed on fine uniform silica sand known as F-75 Ottawa sand. Advanced analysis techniques were used to study the instability phenomena, which yielded very accurate measurements of shear bands occurrences and patterns. Destructive thin-sectioning technique along with monitoring the specimen surface deformation was used in the PS experiments and Computed Tomography (CT) was used to investigate the progress of primary and secondary shear bands in specimens subjected to CTC. Comparison between the two cases will be presented and discussed.