On some of the factors influencing the fines' role on liquefaction of silty sands

Silty sands are among the soil types that are prone to liquefaction when subjected to static or dynamic undrained loading. Today, it is widely accepted that clean sands and silty sands react differently in terms of liquefaction behavior. With this observation, factors influencing fines' role on such a difference have been investigated by various researchers. Some of those factors such as laboratory specimen preparation method and confining stress are relatively well understood. However, some others such as fines content (FC) are still debated and being investigated. More explicitly, there is not a widely accepted consensus on whether increasing fines content increases or decreases the liquefaction resistance of silty sands, even with the same comparison basis (i.e. loosest possible density after deposition, same void ratio, same relative density etc.). Recently, relative size of silt grains to the sand grains is also found to be another factor influencing the fines' role on liquefaction behavior of silty sands. In this paper, some of the research in literature regarding liquefaction of silty sands is re-visited and various factors influencing the fines' role on liquefaction behavior are summarized.