Cyclic shear behavior and seismic response of partially saturated slopes

In order to quantitatively investigate the effects of degree of saturation on the cyclic shear characteristics and seismic response of sloping grounds, undrained cyclic triaxial tests and online pseudo-dynamic response tests were conducted on decomposed granite (Masado) soil samples. Online testing is a method of feeding soil response characteristics directly from soil samples into a modeling algorithm. In the both series of tests, soil specimens prepared under different degrees of saturation and subjected to various initial shear stresses were tested. The results obtained from the tests quantitatively confirmed the notion that unsaturated soils do not undergo large strength decrease as fully saturated ones do.