Scientists have found
that the shape of sand grains influences the liquefaction of sand, one of the
major factors behind the collapse of structures during earthquakes.
Liquefaction of sand is a phenomenon
in which the strength and stiffness of a soil is reduced by earthquake shaking
or other rapid loading and leads to the collapse of structures
resting on the liquefied ground.
As natural sand with regular shape liquefies easily, the
scientists have concluded that natural sand used in
structures like slopes and retaining walls can be replaced with irregular
manufactured sand to improve the stability and sustainability.
Though the qualitative effects of grain size
and grain shape on the resistance of sand to liquefaction are well established,
quantitative correlations between them are elusive. Most of the studies in this
direction used conventional methods to quantify the grains' size and shape,
including sieve analysis and visual observations.
In a breakthrough study, researchers at the
Indian Institute of Science (IISc) used digital image analysis for grain shape
characterizations and related them to the liquefaction potential of the sands.
They found a strong relation between the two. This is because the shear force (unaligned forces pushing one part of a body in one specific
direction and another part of the body in the opposite direction) required to break the
inter-particle locking is more for the grains with relatively irregular shapes.
Microscopic images of sand particles were
analyzed through computational algorithms developed in MATLAB (MATrix
LABoratory), which is a high-performance computing platform for analyzing data
to determine their shape parameters. Cyclic simple shear tests in which specimens
are subjected to simulated earthquake conditions of alternate cycles of tension
and compression were carried out on sand samples to determine their potential
to liquefy under specific earthquake conditions. For these tests, the
scientists used the cyclic simple shear test setup (GCTS USA make) procured
through Department of Science and Technology – Fund for Improvement of S&T
Infrastructure in Universities and Higher Educational Institutions (FIST)
funding. The study has been accepted for publication in Indian Geotechnical
Journal, for carrying out cyclic simple shear tests.
