Loading frequency effect on dynamic properties of mixed sandy soils

Most of the previous studies focused on pure (clean) sands, silts and clays and less effort has been dedicated toward understanding the dynamic behaviors of natural sandy soils. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of loading frequency as one of the most important factors affects the dynamic properties especially stiffness and damping characteristics of natural sandy soils mixed with silt and gravel. For this purpose, 40 dynamic triaxial tests were carried out on the cylindrical samples prepared from three mixed sandy materials. Cyclic tests were performed using large triaxial apparatus under different confinement, waveforms and loading frequencies. Results showed that, shear modulus and damping ratio were dependent on confining pressure and loading frequency. Shear modulus and damping ratio increase as loading frequency increases. Moreover, the shear modulus increases as confining pressure increases but damping ratio decreases. However, the effect of triangle, sinusoidal and rectangle waveforms on the dynamic behavior was negligible. At the ranges of strains studied, the effects of number of cyclic loading and excess pore water pressure over and were negligible. There are considerable differences between obtained results for the tested soils and literature results, even for the almost same loading frequency.