Effect of pumice content on the undrained cyclic behaviour of pumiceous soil

Abstract

Pumice soil grains are characterized by their vesicular nature, which leads to lightweight, crushable grains with an extremely rough and angular surface texture. These characteristics give pumiceous soils particular engineering properties that are distinct from more commonly encountered hard-grained materials, making them problematic for engineers interested in assessing the risk and potential consequences of liquefaction. Natural pumice-rich soils are found with varying amounts of pumice; however, it remains unclear how the quantity of pumice present in a soil mixture alters the behaviour. This paper investigates the effect of pumice content on cyclic resistance using blends of a hard-grained sand and a pumice sand through a series of triaxial tests. Overall, the cyclic resistance was found to reduce with increasing pumice content. Furthermore, the cyclic resistances appeared to fall into three bands: (a) little apparent reduction in cyclic resistance for pumice contents up to 40%, (b) a reduction in cyclic resistance of approximately 20% at pumice contents of 80% and higher, and (c) a transitional zone. However, despite the lower cyclic resistance, the patterns of pore pressure generation and strain development did not appear to be affected by the amount of pumice in the soil mixture.