Undrained Monotonic and Cyclic Response of Weakly Cemented Sand

This paper presents a laboratory investigation into the monotonic and cyclic responses of weakly cemented sand. An extensive laboratory testing program comprising unconfined compressive strength and tensile strength tests, as well as undrained monotonic and cyclic triaxial tests, was performed on clean quartz sand, with cement contents (CCs) varying from 1% to 8%. The effect of various parameters, among which are the cementation content, density, effective stress and curing time is examined. Even at the smallest CC of 1%, a distinctive enhanced behavior of the cemented sand over that of the uncemented was observed. At a given density and effective confining stress, increasing cementation results in the decrease of contractiveness of sand under monotonic shearing and in the transition of cyclic behavior from flow-type liquefaction to cyclic mobility type.