INFLUENCE OF WATER CONTENT ON THE CYCLIC BEHAVIOUR OF A SILTY SAND

This paper presents results of repeated load triaxial tests performed on a silty sand used as subgrade soil at the full scale pavement test facility of the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussees in Nantes. The sand was tested at different degrees of saturation, corresponding to those found in situ. Both the resilient (elastic) behaviour of the sand and its permanent strains were studied, and the paper proposes simple relationships to describe these two types of behaviour. The suction of the specimens was measured in the tests, and correlations between the suction and the mechanical properties of the material are proposed. (A) For the covering abstract see IRRD 883133.