Dilatancy and Shear Strength of Sand at Low Confining Pressures

Abstract

Sand dilates with shearing at a rate that increases with increasing relative density ?DR? and decreases with increasing effective confining stress ??c ??. The peak friction angle of a sand depends on its critical-state friction angle and on dilatancy. In this paper, we develop a simple correlation between peak friction angle, critical-state friction angle, and dilatancy based on triaxial compression and plane-strain compression test data for sand for a range of confining pressures from very low levels to approximately 196 kPa.