

The effect of drainage history on post-cyclic monotonic undrained shear behavior of non-plastic silt has been investigated using cyclic and subsequent monotonic undrained triaxial tests, following a testing procedure proposed by the authors in which cyclic loading is carried out under stress-controlled conditions and subsequent monotonic loading is conducted under strain-controlled conditions. The results of a battery of tests show that, if the silt did not experience further undrained cyclic loading, the stiffness returned to the original value after once undergoing drainage from full or partial dissipation of excess pore pressures generated during undrained cyclic loading. This characteristic differs greatly from the behavior of cohesive soils, which tend to exhibit stiffness and strength improvement. On the other hand, the post-cyclic undrained strength increased independently of the period at all stages of dissipation of excess pore pressures when drainage was allowed after undrained cyclic loading, depending only on whether liquefaction took place before drainage started. These characteristic features of post-cyclic undrained behavior of non-plastic silt resemble those of cohesive soils including plastic silts and clays, which implies that deformation of silty soil ground during and after earthquakes is more important than ground failure.