Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238

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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

A modified dynamic shear modulus model for rockfill materials under a

wide range of shear strain amplitudes
crossmark
⁎
Wei Zhou, Yuan Chen, Gang Ma , Lifu Yang, Xiaolin Chang
State Key Laboratory of Water Resources and Hydropower Engineering Science, Wuhan University, 430072 Wuhan, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A BS T RAC T

Keywords: High rockfill dams experience a wide range of shear strain amplitudes during earthquakes. To provide more
Shear modulus reliable material property descriptions for earthquake response analysis of high rockfill dams, this study
Constitutive model investigates the dynamic properties of rockfill materials in a wide strain range by large-scale cyclic triaxial
Rockfill materials testing with a high-sensitivity laser sensor. The results reveal the considerable increase of shear modulus and
Shear strain
decrease of damping ratio with increasing confining pressure for a given initial stress ratio and the significant
Initial stress ratio
effect of the initial stress ratio on the small-strain shear modulus and normalized shear modulus. Previously
proposed equations were found to imprecisely depict the variation of the dynamic shear modulus of rockfill
materials for a wide strain range. Furthermore, the dynamic shear modulus is dependent on the Initial stress
ratio in the anisotropic stress condition. Based on the existing hyperbolic model, a modified model for rockfill
materials is suggested to accurately estimate the nonlinear behavior. The applicability of the modified model
and previous studies for rockfill materials are assessed in the estimation of the normalized shear modulus. The
results provide a reference for evaluating the accurate shear modulus in a wide strain range for strong
earthquake motions.

1. Introduction particularly on the dynamic properties of granular soils. It was revealed

Many high rockfill dams are being built around the world, especially
in China. According to statistics, 17 rockfill dams in western China
exceed 200 m in height. These dams are mostly located in the earth-
quake-intense area of western China. If these high dams fail during an
earthquake, not only would significant economic losses occur but also
the life and property of the residents in the downstream area would be
threatened. Therefore, evaluation of the dynamic response of high
rockfill dams during earthquakes is of major importance. The small-
strain shear modulus (Gmax ), normalized shear modulus (G / Gmax ) and
damping ratio (D ) are important parameters for seismic response
analysis. These parameters are generally determined based on the
equivalent linear viscosity–elasticity model, which utilizes iterative
calculation to match the dynamic characteristics and computed strain
with the modulus reduction and damping ratio increase curves—i.e., G
and D versus shear strain amplitude γ measured in laboratory [1].
Extensive studies have been dedicated to the relationships between
dynamic properties and shear strain amplitude for sandy soils and
cohesive soils [2–13]. The experimental studies by Senetakis et al. [11–
13] focused on the effect of the mineralogy of the particle form,
that at small to medium shear strains the dynamic properties of the
volcanic granular materials and pumice sands are remarkably more
linear in comparison to the response of quartz sands. And for the
volcanic and pumice sands, the elastic threshold and volumetric
threshold are shifted to higher strain levels. However, the modulus
reduction model for gravels and rockfills receives less attention than
that for sandy and cohesive soils. In the past two decades, experimental
results of gravels and rockfills have also been obtained using advanced
devices [13–24]. Seed et al. [16] compared the dynamic behavior of
gravels with that of sands and concluded that the normalized shear
modulus reduction curve of gravels significantly diverges beneath the
curve of sands. The damping ratio increasing curves of sands and
gravels are roughly similar. Rollins et al. [18] reviewed extensive
published experimental results of gravels and presented the range of
dynamic behavior of gravels. The experimental study by Senetakis et al.
[13] have shown that the curves by Rollins et al. described satisfactorily
the dynamic properties data of quartzitic crushed rock in the range of
small to medium shear strain amplitudes. In the literature, the dynamic
behavior of gravels and rockfills within a range of shear strain
amplitude from 5×10−4% to about 5×10−2% has been examined

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: zw_mxx@163.com (W. Zhou), yuancy_1013@whu.edu.cn (Y. Chen), magang630@whu.edu.cn (G. Ma), yanglifu0598@163.com (L. Yang),
changxl@whu.edu.cn (X. Chang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2016.10.027
Received 17 March 2016; Received in revised form 4 July 2016; Accepted 18 October 2016
0267-7261/ © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Zhou et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238

extensively [14,15,21]. Hardin and Kalinski [15] investigated the shear
modulus reduction of gravelly soils at the shear strain level less than
0.05% and expanded the modulus reduction model originally devel-
oped for sands, silts and clays to include gravels. The experimental
results of Xenaki [21] showed that the modulus curves proposed by
Stokoe [17] and Hardin and Kalinski [15] are lower and higher than
the measured data of gravels at the large strain level, respectively.
However, for highly compacted rockfill materials, the shear strain level
can reach up to 0.1% or higher in earthquakes [23]. The construction of
high rockfill dams in high-intensity seismic regions raises the demand
for a full description of the dynamic characteristics of rockfill materials
corresponding to a wide range of shear strain levels.
Rollins et al. [18] analyzed the effect of gravel content, maximum
grain size, relative density and confining pressure on the extensive
dynamic nonlinear behavior of the gravels, which implies that both
G / Gmax – logγ and D – logγ curves are less sensitive to these
parameters except for confining pressure. The pre-earthquake static
stresses in rockfill dams are simulated in cyclic triaxial test by
consolidating specimens. It should be noted that most of the investiga-
tions have been conducted under isotropic compression conditions
because it was commonly performed [14–18,27]; Several studies
considered the significant influence of stress anisotropy on the dynamic
characteristics of sands [26,45]. Yu and Richart [45] demonstrated the
effect of stress ratio on the small-strain shear modulus for sands and
found that the shear modulus decreased as the stress ratio increasing.
The experimental results have shown that the normalized shear
modulus in the same shear strain increased as the stress ratio
decreased [26]. Less attention has been paid to the effect of the
anisotropic stress state on the dynamic response of rockfill materials.
Cyclic triaxial tests conducted by Araei et al. [23–25] demonstrated
that both the confining pressure and anisotropic stress condition have
significant influences on the dynamic properties of rockfill materials.
The available experimental results on the dynamic properties of rockfill
materials under anisotropic stress state are also limited.
The modulus reduction and damping increase characteristics are
commonly obtained by cyclic triaxial tests [27–31], resonant column
tests [31,32], and cyclic torsional shear tests [29,33–35]. Onsite and
in-laboratory wave velocity testing can only determine Gmax in the small
strain on an order of magnitude of 10−6 [36–40]. However, the large-
scale cyclic triaxial tests and the high-sensitivity laser tests enable
measurement of the dynamic properties of rockfill materials from small
strain to large strain levels [41–44].
This study presents the results of a series of large-scale cyclic
triaxial tests for rockfill materials in a wide strain range from the orders
of 10−6–10−3, and the effects of high confining pressure and initial
stress ratio on the dynamic properties are evaluated. Based on the
modulus reduction equations developed by Stokoe [27], a modified
model is developed to accurately characterize the normalized shear
modulus of rockfill materials. Using the experimental data, the applic-
ability of the modified model is assessed in the estimation of the
normalized shear modulus. The improved model is compared against
previous studies, and the results provide a reference for estimating the
dynamic properties of rockfill materials for a wide strain range.
n are material constants.
The hyperbolic model proposed by Hardin [32] is widely used in
seismic analysis. To improve the fits to the test data, Stokoe et al. [27]
introduced a curvature coefficient m . It has been demonstrated that the
modified hyperbolic model can adequately describe the behavior of
sandy gravel [21]. The model is expressed as
G 1
=
Gmax 1 + (γ / γr )m (2)
where γr is the reference shear strain used to normalize the shear strain
amplitude, which is the shear strain when G / Gmax is equal to 0.5. m is
assumed to be a constant, which is suggested to be 0.92 by Darendeli
[3]. The reference strain varies significantly with the mean effective
stress p :
γr = γr1 ( p / Pa )k (3)
where γr1 is the reference strain at an atmospheric pressure Pa , and k is
an exponent that expresses the slope of the relation between γr and p in
a log scale.
3. Test materials, specimen preparation and testing
procedure
3.1. Material properties
The tested rockfills samples used in this study were obtained from
the rockfill materials of the Houziyan concrete-faced rockfill dam
(CFRD) and the Lianghekou core rockfill dam (CFD) in China. The
limestone rockfills in the different parts of Houziyan CFRD—namely,
HZY-1, HZY-2, and HZY-3—correspond to the main rockfill zone, the
transition layer and the cushion layer, respectively. Additionally,
rhyolite rockfills used in the main rockfill zone are named HZY-4.
The natural sandy gravels located in the overburden layer of the two
dams are named HZY-5 and LHK-2, respectively. The main rockfill
zone of Lianghekou CFD is constructed with granite rock grain, which
is named LHK-1. The main properties of the rockfill materials are listed
in Table 1, the percentage of gravel size particle varied from 68% to
92%. The grain size distributions of the materials are shown in Fig. 1
with maximum particle sizes of 60 mm.
3.2. Specimen preparation and testing procedure
Cyclic tests were conducted on large scale specimens with 300 mm
in diameter and 750 mm in height under different confining pressure
and anisotropic state condition. The testing program was performed in
the large scale trixial equipment, which is equipped with electro-
hydraulic servo controller for vertical load. Static capacity of the
equipment specification is 1000 kN and dynamic capacity of load is
± 500 kN. Lateral pressure for rockfill specimen is limited to 3.5 MPa.
Waveforms are sinusoidal, triangle and rectangle. High sensitive laser
transducer is equipped to obtain the dynamic stress-strain relations in
the small strain level of 10−5 or less. Specimen was prepared by
vibrating the dry rockfills in a split mold to the desired density. The

2. Previous studies to estimate shear modulus Table 1

Summary of the material properties of rockfill materials in cyclic triaxial tests.

Many empirical equations have been developed to estimate the Material ρd (g/ e Cu Dmax D50 (mm) Percent Percent
shear modulus. Considering the effects of void ratio e and anisotropic symbol cm3) (mm) gravel (%) fine (%)
stress, the relationship between Gmax and mean effective confining
pressure is expressed in the form of [45–47] HZY-1 2.27 0.235 7.52 60 17.34 91.68 1.78
HZY-2 2.32 0.195 30.25 60 14.2 82.97 2.21
A ⎛ p ⎞n HZY-3 2.37 0.205 85.29 60 7.85 68.52 5.94
Gmax = Pa ⎜ ⎟ HZY-4 2.20 0.235 7.52 60 17.34 91.68 1.78
F (e) ⎝ Pa ⎠ (1) HZY-5 2.28 0.179 17.76 60 17.34 84.95 2.18
LHK-1 2.07 0.241 8.81 60 19.17 92.07 2.38
where p = (σ1′ + σ2′ + σ3′)/3 is the mean effective confining pressure, Pa is LHK-2 2.15 0.186 33.06 60 17.45 83.14 3.06
the atmospheric pressure, F (e) is a function of the void ratio, and A and

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4. Modulus relationships and damping relationships

4.1. Small-strain shear modulus Gmax

Fig. 2a shows the variations of Gmax versus the mean effective

confining pressure for different rockfill materials. It can be observed
that, in general, the values of Gmax increase with increasing p . In
Fig. 2b, the relationships between Gmax and p of HZY-1 materials are
shown under different values of initial stress ratio Kc . The linear curves
of Gmax versus p in the double logarithmic coordinates conform with
the power law described in Eq. (1). This reveals that Gmax increases
with increasing Kc , which is consistent with the observation of Araei
[24]. Fig. 3a and b illustrate the relationships among Gmax , p and void
ratio e for limestone groups at the initial stress ratios of 1.5 and 2.5,
respectively. These indicate that the small-strain shear modulus is
dependent upon both the confining pressure and void ratio, which
generally decreases with increasing void ratio and decreasing confining
Fig. 1. Grain size distribution.
pressure.

specimen was enclosed in rubber membranes and placed inside a
triaxial cell and was reconstituted in five layers of necessary weight.
After compacted one layer, the layer interface was made sufficiently
coarse to ensure the two layers be integrated. After filling the dry
rockfills, the vacuum pumping technique was applied for removing the
air in the specimen. Then the specimen was partially saturated by
filling degassed water through the base of the triaxial cell and the back
pressure method was also used to achieve full saturation. When the
Skempton's B-value parameter reached a value of 0.97 or larger, the
specimen was consolidated in anisotropic state to a range of effective
confining pressures in this study. For the completed anisotropic
consolidated specimens, undrained cyclic loading triaxial tests were
carried out under stress-control condition according to China standard
code DL/T 5355-2006 [48]. Rockfill specimens were prepared and
tested under different confining pressures and anisotropic conditions.
A hydrostatic pressure was applied on the specimens and then the axial
pressures were applied to follow the desired anisotropic conditions.
After these specimens are sheared to a prescribed anisotropic stress
state, six cycles of loading with the desired loading frequencies were
applied on the same specimen, and the shear modulus and damping
ratio were determined the value at the fifth cycle. In the dynamic tests,
the specimen was loaded under the undrained condition. The pore
pressure that took place was dissipated at the end of each cycle by
opening the drainage valve. When the pore pressure is close to zero, the
drainage valve can be closed to regain the original effective stresses in
the saturated specimens. This procedure was then repeated until the
maximum strain level was achieved. The axial loads, the vertical
displacements and the pore pressures were measured at periodic
interval of 0.025 s for the applied cyclic loads with frequencies of
0.8 Hz. The sampling frequency was 50 data points per cycle according
to DL/T 5355-2006 [48]. The test conditions are summarized in
Table 2.
Table 2
Summary of cyclic triaxial test conditions.
4.2. Effects of shear strain amplitude, confining pressure and initial
stress ratio on G / Gmax
The nonlinear shear modulus and damping ratio curves of rockfill
materials with different confining pressures and initial stress ratios are
presented in Figs. 4 and 5 in a semi-logarithmic graph. The shear strain
amplitude in this study is extended to 0.3%, and all experimental data
fall inside the range identified by Seed et al. [16] and Rollins et al. [18].
It can be observed that both G / Gmax and D are strongly dependent upon
the shear strain amplitude. As expected, the increase in shear strain
amplitude reduces the normalized shear modulus but increases the
damping ratio. It is noted that G / Gmax decreases dramatically in the
strain range between 0.001% and 0.05%, whereas the decrement rate
declines at larger shear strain levels. The evolutions of G / Gmax for
different rockfill materials are compliant with the typical hyperbolic
stress–strain relationship [49]. The results also reveal that the normal-
ized shear modulus increases and the damping ratio decreases with
increasing confining pressure σ′3 for a given initial stress ratio.
Moreover, the effect of the confining pressure becomes more significant
at larger shear strains. In addition, the normalized shear modulus
increases with increasing initial stress ratio under the same confining
pressure. The experimental results of sand and rockfill materials have
demonstrated that G / Gmax values increase with increasing mean
effective pressure under the isotropic state [15,16]. The values of
G / Gmax with σ′3 = 2 MPa and Kc = 2.5—i.e., p = 3 MPa —are higher than
the corresponding values with σ′3 = 3 MPa and Kc = 1.5 at a same shear
strain amplitude, which indicates that the influence of the initial stress
ratio is significant and cannot be ignored in the shear modulus model.
This evolution is in agreement with the experimental observations of
Araei et al. [24]. Therefore, it is suggested to modify the original model
to include the effect of mean effective stress and initial stress ratio on
the shear modulus.
As observed in Fig. 5, the damping ratio increases continuously
with increasing shear strain amplitude, which implies that more energy
dissipation occurs during the cyclic loading application. The measured
values of damping ratio range from approximately 2–15%.
Additionally, the damping ratio decreases with increasing mean
effective stress regardless of initial stress ratio.

Material symbol σ3′ (kPa) Kc = σ1′/σ3′ Frequency of loading (Hz) 5. Modeling of shear modulus relationship of rockfill
HZY-1 1000, 2000, 3000 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 0.8
materials
HZY-2 1000, 2000, 3000 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 0.8
HZY-3 1000, 2000, 3000 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 0.8 5.1. Analytical model
HZY-4 1000, 2000, 3000 1.5, 2.5 0.8
HZY-5 1000, 2000, 3000 1.5, 2.5 0.8
To quantify the normalized shear modulus reduction of rockfill
LHK-1 500, 1500, 3000 1.5, 2.0 0.5
LHK-2 500, 1500, 3000 1.5, 2.0 0.5 materials, it is convenient to formulate the G / Gmax − lg γ relationship
by utilizing the modified hyperbolic model initially proposed by Stokoe

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W. Zhou et al.
Fig. 2. (a) Variation of Gmax versus p for different rockfill materials. (b) Relationships between Gmax and p at different initial stress ratios for HZY-1.
Fig. 3. Relationships among Gmax , p and void ratio e for limestone groups: (a) Kc =1.5, (b) Kc =2.5.
[27]. The values of γr , determined by multiple regression, correspond to
the shear strain when G / Gmax =0.5. To reduce errors due to large
extrapolations, only data with G / Gmax smaller than 0.75 are used in the
regression analysis [4]. Fig. 6 compares the measured and predicted
values of G / Gmax for representative rockfill materials in this study. The
prediction of Stokoe's model is far from the relationship between the
shear modulus and shear strain of rockfill materials, especially at both
small strain and large strain levels.By rewriting Eq. (2), a linear
relationship can be obtained:
lg(Gmax / G − 1) = m lg(γ / γr )
The equation clearly shows that there is a linear relationship
between (Gmax / G − 1) and γ / γr in the logarithm coordinate system.
The subplots of Fig. 7 show the (Gmax / G − 1)―γ / γr relationships for
different rockfill materials in this study. For comparison, the results of
Toyoura sand [43] and quartz sands [15,50] are also shown in Fig. 7.
As observed in Fig. 7c and d, the experimental data of sands are in
fairly good agreement with a straight line predicted by Stokoe's model.
However, relations between (Gmax / G − 1) and γ / γr of rockfill materials
appear the convex curves on the log-log plots rather than the straight
line of sands. As shown in Fig. 7a and b, the predictions of rockfill
materials according to Eq. (2) deviate greatly from the evolution trend
of the experimental data. This deviation implies that the Stokoe's
model is insufficient to predict the normalized shear modulus of rockfill
materials. Therefore, we use a general function relation, namely power-
exponent function, to describe the nonlinear relationship of
(Gmax / G − 1) versus γ / γr , which is expressed as:
Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238
β
Gmax / G − 1 = (γ / γr )α (γ / γr ) (5)
where α and β are dimensionless fitting parameters. As presented in
Fig. 7a and b, the experimental data of rockfill materials are fairly well
fitted by Eq. (5). A similar trend is also observed for the case of other
rockfill materials in this study. A modification of Eq. (2) is naturally
derived to describe the normalized shear modulus of rockfill materials:
G 1
= β
Gmax 1 + (γ / γr )α (γ / γr ) (6)
(4) where γr is the shear strain amplitude when G / Gmax is equal to 0.5.
Fig. 8a and b present the variation of the parameters α and β with
mean effective stress. There is no obvious regularity between either
parameter and the mean effective stress. The parameter α varies from
0.405 to 0.597 with an average of 0.494 and a standard deviation of
only 0.054, whereas parameter β varies with an average of −0.153 and
a standard deviation of 0.028. The majority of data points fall in the
range of one standard deviation, which indicates that the parameters α
and β can be assumed to be constants at their average values.
Table 3 summarizes the mean and variance of parameters α and β
for limestone rockfills, granite rockfills, rhyolite rockfills and the
natural sandy gravels, respectively.
5.2. Reference shear strain γr
The effect of mean effective stress on the nonlinear behavior of
rockfill materials is discussed in terms of the reference shear strain.
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W. Zhou et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238

Fig. 4. Variation of normalized shear modulus versus shear strain amplitude at different confining pressures for anisotropic rockfill materials (the upper and lower solid lines denote the
envelopes predicted by Rollins et al. [18] and Seed et al. [16], respectively).

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W. Zhou et al.
Fig. 5. Variation of damping ratio versus shear strain amplitude at different confining pressures for anisotropic rockfill materials (the upper and lower solid lines denote the envelopes
predicted by Rollins et al. [18] and Seed et al. [16], respectively).
Fig. 6. Comparison of measured and predicted values of G /Gmax for rockfill materials.
The variations of reference shear strain with mean effective stress for
HZY-1 materials are presented in Fig. 9. Under a given initial stress
ratio, there is a linear relationship between the reference shear strain γr
and the mean effective stress p . It should be noted that the reference
shear strain of Eq. (3) is given in a percentile scale.
An interesting observation is that the three linear fitting lines
shown in Fig. 9 are nearly parallel, which indicates that the exponent k
is independent of Kc and γr1 increases with increasing Kc . Table 4
summarizes k values of rockfill materials with different initial stress
ratios. The values of k vary in a narrow range with an average of 0.491
for limestone materials. The effect of initial stress ratio on the
parameter γr1 of limestone rockfill materials is depicted in Fig. 10.
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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238
The linear relation of γr1 and Kc is excellent within the stress ratio range
of 1.5–2.5 with the regression equation of
γr1 = 2.6 × 10−3Kc + 1.5 × 10−3 (7)
It should be noted that the reference shear strain of Eq. (7) is given
in percentile scale (%). By combining Eqs. (3) and (7) with k = 0.491,
the reference shear strain of rockfill materials can be estimated under
various mean effective stress and initial stress ratio. Fig. 11 shows the
comparison between the measured and predicted values of the
reference shear strain for rockfill materials. The predicted values of γr
are mostly within ± 10% of the measured values.
5.3. Comparison between measured and analytical normalized shear
modulus
After the reference shear strain and parameters α and β are
determined, the normalized shear modulus of rockfill materials under
different conditions can be predicted using Eq. (6). Fig. 12 compares
the predicted and measured values of the normalized shear modulus.
The correlation coefficient between the measured and predicted values
is 0.991, which verifies the feasibility of this model.
Fig. 13 shows the comparisons of the predicted and measured
results for HZY-1 and LHK-1 at various confining pressures and initial
stress ratios. In all cases, the prediction and the experimental results
are similar, even at the large strain level. The decreasing rate of the
normalized shear modulus predicted by Eq. (6) is slowed down at the
large strain level, which is consistent with the experimental results for
1% shear strain [51].
The Stokoe model [27], Hardin model [15] and the model modified
in this work are compared in Fig. 14 for different rockfill materials.
W. Zhou et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 92 (2017) 229–238

Fig. 7. (a–b) Relationships between (Gmax /G − 1) and γ /γr for rockfill materials in this study; (c–d) Relationships between (Gmax /G − 1) and γ /γr for Toyoura sand and quartz sand.

Note that the Hardin equation is applied with a reference quantity
p / Pa instead of γr subjected to anisotropic states of stress [15]. The
normalized shear modulus estimated by the modified model is well
consistent with the experimental data for various confining pressures.
The predicted values of the Stokoe model at the small strain and large
strain are lower than the experimental data. The normalized shear
modulus estimated by the Hardin model coincides with the experi-
mental data when the strain is below 0.01%, whereas the predicted
modulus inaccurately increases with increasing strain. The comparison
results indicate that the modified model is efficient in the modeling of
shear modulus reduction curves of rockfill materials.
6. Conclusion
A modified model predicting the shear modulus reduction of rockfill
materials is developed based on a large number of experimental data
on different rockfill materials. The influences of the effective confining
pressure and initial stress ratio are evaluated. The consistency of the
predicted and measured results has demonstrated that the modified
model is useful in the description of the shear modulus reduction of
rockfill materials for a wide strain range. The following conclusions are
derived from the results presented in the research:

Fig. 8. Variations of parameters α and β with mean effective stress of all limestone rockfill materials.

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Table 3
Average parameter α and β of rockfill materials.

Material α β

Average Standard Average Standard

deviation deviation

Limestone 0.494 0.054 −0.153 0.028

Rhyolite 0.529 0.076 −0.155 0.019
Granite 0.827 0.051 −0.206 0.019
Nature sandy 0.550 0.093 −0.155 0.022
gravel

Fig. 11. Comparison between measured and predicted values of reference shear strain of
limestone rockfill materials in this study.

Fig. 9. Reference shear strain γr versus mean effective stress p for HZY-1.

Table 4
Average parameter k of rockfill materials at various initial stress ratios.

Kc k

HZY-1 HZY-2 HZY-3 Fig. 12. Measured versus predicted normalized shear modulus values by the modified
model.
1.5 0.504 0.527 0.464
2.0 0.454 0.461 0.504 The experimental data of the modulus and damping ratio coincide
2.5 0.478 0.495 0.539
well with the range specified by Seed et al. [16] and Rollins et al. [18].
Average value 0.479 0.494 0.502
RMSE 0.035 0.054 0.053 The value of the normalized shear modulus increases with increasing
confining pressure. For a given confining pressure, the values of G / Gmax
also increase with an increasing initial stress ratio. The damping ratio
decreases with increasing mean effective stress regardless of initial
stress ratio. The hyperbolic models of Stokoe [27] are modified herein
to improve the estimations of the normalized shear modulus of rockfill
materials in a wide strain range. The curvature coefficient in the
empirical formula of Stokoe [27] is modified. The effect of the mean
effective stress and initial stress ratio on the shear modulus is studied
by the reference shear strain. The predicted values of the normalized
shear modulus are consistent with the experimental data, which
demonstrates that the modified model can accurately estimate the
normalized shear modulus of rockfill materials. Comparisons between
the predictive equations developed in this study and those previously
published indicate that the modified model can satisfy the need of the
strong earthquake motions.
In future studies, the effect of the initial stress ratio on the
normalized shear modulus of rockfill materials could be enriched with
Fig. 10. Effect of initial stress ratio Kc on the parameter γr1 of limestone rockfill
laboratory tests considering a larger range of stress ratios. To imple-
materials in this study. ment dynamic analysis of high CRFDs and CFDs under the strong
earthquake motions, the shear strain amplitude of the experimental
The small-strain shear modulus of rockfill materials is affected by investigation is suggested to reach the order of 1% or higher.
the confining pressure, the void ratio, and the initial stress ratio. The
experimental results exhibit that the small-strain shear modulus Acknowledgements
decreases with increasing void ratio and increases with increasing
confining pressure and initial stress ratio. This work was financially supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51579193 and No.

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Fig. 13. Comparisons of predicted and measured normalized shear modulus with shear strain amplitude under various confining pressures and initial stress ratios.

Fig. 14. Comparison of the predicted and measured values of normalized shear modulus.

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