Correlating qc and cyclic liquefaction resistance of sands through calibration chamber tests and simple shear tests

Static Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) performed in Calibration Chamber (CC) and cyclic Simple Shear (SS) tests can be used to calibrate appropriate correlations for the assessment of liquefaction potential of sands. The authors performed a series of cyclic SS tests on an Italian clean medium silica sand from a fluvial deposit (Ticino sand). Specimens were prepared by water sedimentation (WS) method, taking into account various density and stress states. The corresponding CPT tests carried out in a huge CC on the same sand were analysed, considering the effect of CC size and saturation on the measured cone tip resistance (qc) . Test results showed that the resulting correlation between the cyclic resistance ratio (CRR) evaluated in SS tests and the normalized CPT tip resistance (qc1N) measured in the CC tests, corresponds well to the performance- based correlation for clean sands proposed by other authors at a given equivalent earthquake magnitude.