The behaviour of stress variation in sandy soil

Abstract

This research article represents the recompacted dense sand sample behaviour and stress distribution in the direct shear box. In Lithuania, sand is quite common on a construction site, in general about 32%. To reduce the influence of the shear box design on the experimentally determined values of the soil strength parameters, it is necessary to know the regularities of the change of the normal load acting in the shear plane. Three different normal stresses of 50, 100, and 200 kPa were applied to the dense sand in the direct shear boxes during experimental and numerical simulation. The results showed an obvious evidence of non-uniformity of stress for standard and raised specimens. The numerical analysis exhibited that when the sample is loaded only with a vertical load, approximately 75% of that load is transferred to the sample bottom, 84% to the shear plane, and 95% to the top. At the end of the shear test, the vertical force in the shear plane reaches maximum, the normal stress is higher by 13.5% than applied on the sample top. The shear strength of sandy soils were influenced by box size and sample height too. The improved shear box apparatus allows to estimate the vertical load at shear plane.