Degree of Saturation and Liquefaction Resistances of Sand

Improved with Sand Compaction Pile

Mitsu Okamura1; Masanori Ishihara2; and Keiichi Tamura3

Abstract: Sand compaction pile 共SCP兲 is a ground improvement technique extensively used to ameliorate liquefaction resistance of loose
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sand deposits. This paper discusses results of laboratory tests on high-quality undisturbed samples obtained by the in situ freezing method
at six sites where foundation soils had been improved with SCP. Inspection of samples revealed that the improved ground was desaturated
during the ground improvement. Degree of saturation 共Sr兲 was lower than 77% for the sand piles and 91% for the improved sand layers,
while Sr was approximately 100% for improved clayey and silty soils. A good correlation was found between Sr and 5% diameter of the
soil; the larger 5% diameter of soils 共D5兲, the lower the degree of saturation. It appeared that the variation of Sr with D5 for soils within
a month after the ground improvement work was quite similar in trend to that after more than several years. Degree of saturation of soils
after several years was noticeably, but not significantly, higher as compared with that shortly after ground improvement, indicating
longevity of air bubbles injected in the improved soil. Undrained cyclic shear tests were also carried out on saturated and unsaturated
specimens and effects of desaturation on undrained cyclic shear strength were studied. The test results were summarized in a form of
liquefaction resistance with reference to normalized standard penetration test N-value.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲1090-0241共2006兲132:2共258兲
CE Database subject headings: Saturated soils; Sand; Soil improvement; Liquefaction.

Introduction
Sand compaction pile 共SCP兲 has been extensively used to amelio-
rate liquefaction resistance of loose sand deposits since the 1970s.
The principle of this ground improvement technique is densifica-
tion of foundation soils by installing compacted sand piles. In-
creases in soil density as well as lateral effective stresses are
believed to enhance liquefaction resistance of foundation soils.
Soils below the ground water table are usually considered to
be fully or nearly saturated 共Tsukamoto et al. 2002兲. A large num-
ber of observed primary wave velocities have confirmed this. In
recent years, however, inspections on high quality undisturbed
samples taken by the ground freezing method revealed that degree
of saturation of sand improved with SCP was peculiarly low
共Okamura et al. 2003兲. This fact is consistent with the field ob-
servation that the primary wave velocity of the sand improved
with SCP was unusually low 共Tokimatsu et al. 1990兲. A large
1
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Ehime Univ., 3 Bunkyocho, Matsuyama 790-8577, Japan. E-mail:
okamura@dpc.ehime-u.ac.jp
2
Research Engineer, Ground Vibration Research Team, Public Works
Research Institute, 1-6 Minamihara, Tsukuba 305-8516, Japan. E-mail:
isihara@pwri.go.jp
3
Research Coordinator for Earthquake Disaster Prevention, National
Institute for Land and Infrastructure Management, Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport, 1 Asahi, Tsukuba 305-0804, Japan. E-mail:
tamura-k92ta@nilim.go.jp
Note. Discussion open until July 1, 2006. Separate discussions must
be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by one
month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing Editor.
The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and possible
publication on September 21, 2004; approved on June 29, 2005. This
paper is part of the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental
Engineering, Vol. 132, No. 2, February 1, 2006. ©ASCE, ISSN 1090-
0241/2006/2-258–264/$25.00.
amount of air exhausted from casing pipe during the sand pile
installation is considered to have desaturated soils in the im-
proved areas. Degree of saturation of soils, Sr, has a significant
effect on the liquefaction resistance 共Sherif et al. 1977; Martin et
al. 1978; Yoshimi et al. 1989; Ishihara et al. 1998; Tsukamoto et
al. 2002兲. For example, cyclic shear tests on reconstituted clean
sand conducted by Yoshimi et al. 共1989兲 indicated that a 10%
decrease in Sr doubled the liquefaction resistance of medium
dense sand specimens. Thus in order to make the design of SCP
more rational and to provide information which may be useful to
develop possible liquefaction countermeasure techniques of de-
saturating soils, it is important to investigate degree of saturation
of soils improved with SCP.
The main concerns in this study are 共1兲 soil type and soil
characteristics that can be effectively desaturated during SCP in-
stallation, 共2兲 longevity of air bubbles and a transition of degree
of saturation over time, since air bubbles trapped in the soil might
gradually dissolve in ground water and disappear eventually, and
共3兲 the effects of the degree of saturation on liquefaction resis-
tance. In this study degree of saturation of soils at six sites was
explored where the foundation soils were improved with SCP.
High-quality undisturbed samples were obtained at each site and
undrained cyclic shear tests were conducted.
Degree of Saturation Shortly after SCP Installation
In this section degree of saturation of soils at three sites is de-
scribed, where foundation soils had been improved with SCP
within a month before samples were obtained. Samples were ob-
tained by the in situ ground freezing method which is a sampling
method capable of obtaining high-quality undisturbed sand
samples with degree of saturation almost unchanged 共Yoshimi
et al. 1978, 1994兲.

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Fig. 1. Location of sampling sites

Niigata Site
The Niigata site was located on the flood channel of the Shinano
River in Niigata Prefecture, as illustrated in Fig. 1, about 13.5 km
from the river mouth. In this site, liquefiable foundation soils
were improved with SCP for construction of a landing quay for
emergency supply ships. Fig. 2共a兲 presents the soil profile at the
site together with the standard penetration test 共SPT兲 N-value just
after the ground improvement was completed. The foundation soil
was improved in the area of 60 m long by 24 m wide and to the
depth of 7.8 m from the ground surface.
Fig. 3 schematically demonstrates typical SCP construction Fig. 2. Soil profiles in sampling site
procedure 共Nozu et al. 1998兲. A casing pipe with a diameter of
0.4 m is penetrated by either a hydraulic jack or a vibro-hammer
into the ground and sand is placed in the casing pipe from the top. Izumo Site
Then, the casing pipe is withdrawn 0.5 m and the sand is dis- The Izumo site was located near the Kando River in Shimane
charged into the bored hole with the aid of pressurized air of the Prefecture 共Fig. 1兲. In this site, foundation soil was improved with
order of 500 kN/ m2 supplied from the top. The sand pile is com- SCP below an abutment of a road bridge crossing the river to
pressed vertically to increase its diameter to about 0.7 m by pen- reduce liquefaction susceptibility. From November to December
etrating the casing pipe 0.3 m. The withdrawing and repenetrating 2001, a total of 150 sand piles were driven in a square pattern at
procedure is repeated until a complete compacted sand pile is a spacing of 2.2 m, giving rise to the replacement ratio of 8%.
formed. It was observed during the sand pile construction in this
site as well as the other sites described in this section that the
large amount of air which was exhausted with sand into the
ground from the tip of the casing pipe continuously spouted from
everywhere of the ground surface within the area about several
meters from the casing. This is a common practice in SCP con-
struction. The sand used to build the SCP was dredged from the
Shinano River bed near the site.
Fig. 4 illustrates the plan view of a part of each site, showing
the arrangements of sand piles and sampling locations. From June
to August 2001, a total of 850 compacted sand piles were driven
in a rectangular pattern at spacing of 1.2 and 1.4 m, giving rise to
the replacement ratio of 23%. About 1 month after the completion
of the sand pile installation, high-quality undisturbed samples of
150 mm diameter were obtained by the in situ ground freezing
method 共Yoshimi et al. 1978兲 at four locations including the im-
proved soil and the sand pile. Fig. 3. SCP installation procedures

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Fig. 4. Plan view of the sampling locations
Fig. 2共b兲 presents soil profile at the site together with the SPT
N-value obtained after the ground improvement. The foundation
soil mostly consisted of fine sand and sandy silt to the depth of
10 m. The material used for the sand piles was obtained from the
river near the site. About 1 month after the completion of the
ground improvement, high-quality undisturbed samples were ob-
tained by the in situ ground freezing method at two locations in
the improved ground as indicated in Fig. 4共b兲.
Yasugi Site
During the Tottoriken-seibu earthquake of October 2000, some
parts of dikes protecting the coastline were heavily damaged
共Tokida et al. 2000兲. At Yasugi site shown in Fig. 1, which is
located some 50 m from the mouth of the Iinashi River, a 2.1 m
high dike had subsided as much as 1.2 m due to liquefaction of
foundation soils. A total of 680 sand piles were driven typically in
a square pattern at a spacing of 1.5 m from April to May 2002.
The replacement ratio in this site was 17%. Fig. 2共c兲 indicates soil
profile and the SPT N-value after the ground improvement work.
Except for the fine sand fill at the surface, the foundation soil
mostly consisted of coarse sands with some inclusion of gravel to
the depth of 20 m. The depth of SCP at the sampling locations
was 23 m. The sand obtained in the vicinity of the site was used
as the sand pile material. About 1 week after the completion of
the ground improvement, high-quality undisturbed samples were
obtained at four locations including the improved soil and the
sand pile, as demonstrated in Fig. 4共c兲.
In Situ Ground Freezing Method
The in stiu ground freezing method is a sampling method capable
of obtaining high-quality undisturbed soil samples, especially for
sands and gravels with less fines content 共Yoshimi et al. 1978,
1994兲. The procedures of the in situ ground freezing and the
sampling of frozen sands used in this study are as follows. First of
all, steel casing pipes were set in excavated holes, which were
used as a guide for a core barrel when sand samples were cored.
The casing pipes were equipped with thermocouples so that the
position of the freezing front in the ground could be monitored. A
borehole was drilled to the predetermined depth and a freezer
pipe with a diameter of 100 mm was set. Liquid nitrogen
共−196° C兲 was kept pouring into the pipe until the diameter of the
frozen zone became 1,200 mm. Then, frozen soil samples were
obtained by using a core barrel. The diameter of the samples was
150 mm at the three sites and 73 mm at another three sites dis-
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cussed in the subsequent section. The coring was done at different
locations in each site as indicated in Fig. 4, avoiding the zone
70 mm from the surface of the freezer pile where the soils could
be disturbed by the borehole excavation for the freezer pile instal-
lation 共Yoshimi et al. 1984兲. The obtained frozen samples were
wrapped with plastic sheets to minimize sublimation of the pore
ice and carried to the laboratory by a refrigerator car.
It should be noted here that the increase in the solubility of air
to water due to the drop of water temperature during the ground
freezing process may result in the increase in the degree of satu-
ration. In the Niigata site, for instance, the temperature of the soil
at 8 m below ground level 共G.L. −8 m兲 changed from 14° C at the
beginning of ground freezing to below zero, corresponding to
the change in the solubility of air to water of 1 cm3 from
0.021 to 0.029 cm3. Also, the volume of the air decreased in pro-
portion to the absolute temperature in the ground freezing pro-
cess. Considering these effects, degree of saturation 共Sr兲 de-
scribed in this paper may be slightly higher than that of soils in
situ before freezing. Assuming that the soil was frozen in the
drained condition without changing void ratio, the effects of the
solubility increase and the air volume decrease result in the in-
crease in Sr by as much as 2.5%.
Effect of Soil Grain Size on Degree of Saturation
Frozen samples were cut out and trimmed to cylindrical speci-
mens with 50 mm diameter and 100 mm high, and hollow cylin-
drical specimens with inner and outer diameters of 60 and
100 mm, respectively, and 100 mm high. Most specimens were
taken from sand layers and a few from clay and silt layers. The
specific gravity, the water content, and the unit weight of each
frozen specimen were measured and degree of saturation was
calculated. Degree of saturation of specimens is plotted against
depth in Fig. 5. It is apparent that the improved soils in sand
layers as well as the sand piles contained a considerable amount
of air. The degree of saturation was lower than 77% for the sand
piles 共samples SS1 and YS4; see Fig. 4兲 and 91% for the
improved soils in the sand layers. For clayey and silty soils,
however, that is G.L. −4.8 and −6.3 m of the Izumo site and
G.L. −10 m of the Yasugi site, Sr was approximately 100%,
showing a significant effect of grain size on the degree of
saturation.
Semer et al. 共1998兲 and Marulanda et al. 共2000兲 observed flow
patterns of air injected in a saturated granular media. They found
that injected air formed bubbly flow in the coarser grains 共gravel兲,
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Fig. 5. Degree of saturation shortly after ground improvement

in which discrete bubbles were uniformly distributed in the pore
water, while injected air flowed along preferential flow pathways
through the fine grains 共channeling flow兲. This observation may
suggest that the air injected from the casing tip during ground
improvement with SCP in coarse sand and gravel is subjected to
splitting continuously into bubbles until limiting size is reached,
and the bubbles desaturate the soils uniformly. While in fine
graded soils, channeling flow desaturates soil in a very limited
zone along the flow pathways and degree of saturation of overall
soil mass is kept high. In order to flow a bubble through saturated
soils, the bubble must overcome resistance due to the capillary
pressure. Also movement of air in the saturated soil involves dis-
placement of the ground water. Therefore permeability and capil-
lary pressure of soils, both of which are dominated by the soil
grain size, are considered as possible influential factors that affect
the Sr of improved ground. Fig. 6 presents plots of Sr against D10,
D5, and FC, where D10 and D5 denote 10 and 5% diameter, re-
spectively, and FC is fines content. The improved soils with FC
higher than 20% are fully or nearly saturated with Sr higher than
99%, while for soils with FC lower than 20% degree of saturation
is in a wide range from 70 to 92% without clear correlation with
FC. The trend of Sr increasing with FC is consistent with the
above-mentioned flow patterns of injected air, however, the
threshold value of FC separating Sr being 100% from less than
100% is not clear, indicating that FC may not be a good index of
Sr. On the other hand, Sr decreases with increasing D10 and D5
with good correlations.
Horizontal Distribution of Degree of Saturation
The large diameter samples 共␾150 mm兲 enabled us to take four
cylindrical specimens from a sample at the same depth. A total of
29 sets of four such specimens were obtained from different
samples at different depths. Differences in Sr between four such
specimens in any set were less than 4% except for three sets. In
each site, frozen soil samples were cored at more than two loca-
tions. Comparison of specimens taken from different location but
the same depth of a site reveals horizontal distribution of Sr.
Except for the sand piles, the degree of saturation of improved
soils at any depth does not seem to vary with the distance from
the sand pile as seen in Fig. 5 共Okamura et al. 2003兲. It can be
said from these observations that degree of saturation is almost
uniform at any depth in the improved ground except for sand piles
which consist of the different soil materials from the improved
soils.
Degree of Saturation of Soils Improved More
Than Several Years Ago
It was revealed in the preceding section that degree of saturation
of sand soon after ground improvement with SCP was unusually
low. In this section light is shed on the effect of time after ground
improvement on the degree of saturation. Another three sites were
investigated in which foundation soils had been improved with

Fig. 6. Variations of Sr with soil characteristics 共shortly after ground improvement兲

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 SCP about 4, 8, and 26 years ago, respectively. At each site,
73 mm diameter samples were obtained by the in situ ground
freezing method in much the same way as described above except
for the sample diameter.
Sekiya Site
The Sekiya site was on the Shinano River dike, about 8.5 km
from the river mouth 共Fig. 1兲. In 1976 and 1977 the foundation
soil in an area 71 m long by 54 m wide in plan was improved
with SCP to a depth of 13.5 m from the ground surface to reduce
the potential for foundation liquefaction. The sand piles were
driven in a square pattern at a spacing of 1.5 m, corresponding to
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the replacement ratio of 17%. In 2002, 26 years after the ground
improvement work, samples were obtained by the in situ ground
freezing method from the area. Fig. 2共d兲 demonstrates the soil
profile at the site together with the SPT N-value observed in the
vicinity of the sampling location. The foundation soil consisted of
fine sand and a clayey silt layer to the depth of 12 m.
Moriya Site
The Moriya site was on the super levee of the Tone River in
Ibaraki Prefecture 共Fig. 1兲. In 1995, foundation soil was improved
with SCP below the dike to reduce liquefaction potential of the
foundation soil. The sand piles were driven to a depth of 22.5 m
in a square pattern at a spacing of 1.3 m, giving rise to the re-
placement ratio of 23%. In 2003, 8 years after the ground im-
provement work, a sample was obtained by the in situ ground
freezing method. Fig. 2共e兲 indicates soil profile at the site together
with the SPT N-value. The foundation soil consisted of layers of
silty and clayey soils and sand with a considerable amount of
fines content.
Hitotsuya Site
The Hitotsuya site was located on the dike of the Yodo River in
Osaka Prefecture, about 16 km from the river mouth 共Fig. 1兲. In
2000, foundation soil was improved with SCP below the dike as a
remedial measure against liquefaction-induced dike failure. A
total of 648 sand piles were driven to the depth of 12.5 m in a
square pattern at a spacing of 1.8 m, corresponding to the replace-
ment ratio of 12%. In 2004, 4 years after the ground improvement
work, a sample was obtained by the in situ ground freezing
method. Fig. 2共f兲 presents the soil profile at the site together with
the SPT N-value. The foundation soil consisted mostly of coarse
sand and gravel with a silt layer being sandwiched in between.
Since it was not allowed to excavate the dike and expose the
head of the sand piles, the frozen samples were cored without
knowing the exact locations of the sand piles at the three sites
described in this section. The observed stratifications of the frozen
samples, however, coincided with the boring logs before the
ground improvement, indicating that all the samples were ob-
tained from the improved soils.
Effects of Time on Degree of Saturation
In the Sekiya site in which the foundation soil was improved
26 years ago, degree of saturation was as low as 92%. In this site,
the primary wave velocity, Vs, was measured by PS loggings both
inside and outside the improved area 1 month before the sam-
pling. The primary wave velocity has successfully been employed
to evaluate degree of saturation of almost fully saturated sands
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Fig. 7. Primary wave velocity profiles at Sekiya site
共Ishihara et al. 1998; Yang 2002兲. But it is difficult to use Vs to
determine Sr of partially saturated soils with Sr lower than a cer-
tain value, say about 98%, because Vs in soils becomes close to
the velocity of sound in air 共approximately 350 m / s兲 and is es-
sentially insensitive to a change of Sr in the range of lower Sr. The
measured primary wave velocities at the two locations are given
in Fig. 7. The velocity in the soil below the ground water table in
the improved area was close to the velocity of sound, suggesting
that the soil contained a considerable amount of air. On the other
hand, an apparently higher velocity between 620 and 1,300 m / s
was observed in the soil about 50 m away from the improved
area, corresponding roughly to a degree of saturation of 99.9% or
higher 共Yang 2002兲. This fact confirms that soil in the improved
area had been desaturated by the SCP and air bubbles in the soil
have survived for 26 years.
Fig. 8 depicts profiles of degree of saturation of the three sites.
For the Moriya site 关Fig. 8共b兲兴, all specimens from this site con-
tained a considerable amount of fines and the degree of saturation
was close to 100%, despite the highest replacement ratio among
the six sites. While for the Hitotsuya site 关Fig. 8共c兲兴 Sr of the
coarse sand was as low as 75%. Degree of saturation is plotted
against D10 and D5 in Fig. 9, together with the range of Sr of soils
shortly after the SCP installation. The variations of Sr with D10
and D5 are quite similar in trend to those for soils shortly after
SCP installation. The degree of saturation is noticeably, but not
significantly, higher compared with soils shortly after the ground
improvement, roughly from 5% to at most 10%. This implies that
if degree of saturation shortly after SCP installation is lower than
90%, the unsaturated condition lasts for a long time.
Undrained Cyclic Shear Test
Some researchers have carried out cyclic shear tests to see the
effect of Sr on the liquefaction resistance. Their test results con-
firmed the significance of the effects but the range of Sr tested
was mostly higher than 90% except for tests conducted by
Yoshimi et al. 共1989兲. Also, all the tests were conducted on re-
constituted clean sand. In order to investigate the effect of Sr on
the liquefaction resistance of improved sand in a wide range of Sr,
undrained cyclic shear tests were conducted.
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Fig. 8. Degree of saturation of soils improved more than several years ago

Test Conditions Relationship between Liquefaction Resistance and

The frozen samples were trimmed in the laboratory to hollow
cylindrical specimens and undrained cyclic shear tests were con-
ducted both on fully saturated and partially saturated specimens.
For the tests on fully saturated specimens the frozen specimens
were thawed in the test cell under a confining pressure of 20 kPa
and then saturated with deaired water until the pore pressure co-
efficient B value exceeded 0.95. While for the tests on partially
saturated specimens, attention was paid to minimize the change of
Sr through the course of specimen preparation and the test. A
frozen specimen was set in the torsional shear apparatus and a
vacuum of −93 kPa was applied to the specimen for 1 min to
remove air in the connecting tubes, porous stones, and space
between the membrane and the specimen. Then water was intro-
duced through the bottom porous stone. The water was flowed
from the bottom up for about 1 min. At this moment, the region
of the specimen only about 1 to 2 mm from the surface was
thawed. The imparted water flow expelled air in the system and
specimen in the thawed zone, but the air entrapped in the still
frozen zone was thought to be intact. Then, the specimen was
allowed to thaw completely in the drained condition under
the effective confining pressure of 20 kPa. Finally, undrained
cyclic torsional shear was applied to the specimen. In all the tests
the initial effective confining pressure and the back-pressure
applied to the specimen were the in situ effective overburden
pressures and hydrostatic pressure at the depth of the specimen,
respectively.
SPT N-value
Liquefaction resistance in terms of the cyclic shear stress ratio
共␶d / ␴⬘c 兲 for double amplitude shear strain 共DA兲 of 7.5% in
20 cycles is plotted against the normalize SPT N-value in Fig. 10,
where ␶d = shear stress amplitude and ␴⬘c = initial effective confin-
ing pressure. Note that Fig. 10 does not indicate the cyclic shear
stress ratio to induce 100% excess pore pressure ratio 共ru兲; in fact,
the number of cycles to reach ru = 100% tended to be larger than
that for DA= 7.5%, in particular for unsaturated specimens. The
relationship used in current practice 共Japan Road Association
2002兲 for sandy soils with fines content less than 10% is also
presented in the figure. The normalized blow count for effective
vertical stress of 98 kPa, N1, is given as
N ⫻ 1.7
N1 = 共1兲
␴⬘v/98 + 0.7
where ␴⬘v = effective vertical stress in kPa and N = SPT blow
count. The N1-value ranged from 10 to 33 and from 13 to 27 for
saturated and unsaturated specimens, respectively. Although some
scatter of the data points exist, which is largely due to the hetero-
geneous nature of the improved ground 共Okamura et al. 2003兲,
the relationship in the current practice incorporation with the
N1-value appeared to estimate the liquefaction resistance of the
fully saturated improved sand reasonably well.
It can also be seen in this figure that the liquefaction resistance

Fig. 9. Variations of Sr with soil characteristics 共after more than several years兲

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Fig. 10. Relationship between liquefaction resistance and normalized
N-value for saturated and desaturated improved sand
of the unsaturated specimens was found to be considerably higher
than that of the saturated specimens. The difference in the lique-
faction resistance is more apparent for lower N1-value. Yoshimi et
al. 共1989兲; Ishihara et al. 共1998兲; and Tsukamoto et al. 共2002兲
conducted cyclic shear tests on partially saturated Toyoura sand
specimens prepared at a loose to medium dense condition. They
obtained similar results irrespective of relative density that lique-
faction resistance for Sr = 90% was about 2 times higher than that
for Sr = 100%. The test results shown in Fig. 10, except for the
dense specimens 共N1 ⬎ 25兲, are more or less consistent with the
results in the previous study.
The liquefaction resistance of unsaturated specimens is in the
relatively small range between 0.4 and 0.5 irrespective of
N1-value and the degree of saturation. According to the test re-
sults reported by Yoshimi et al. 共1989兲, liquefaction resistance
increased sharply with decreasing Sr from 100 to 90% and even-
tually level off in the range of lower Sr. The liquefaction resis-
tance of unsaturated specimens obtained in this study being in-
sensitive to Sr may be due to the fact that all the specimens had
considerably lower Sr.
Conclusions
High-quality undisturbed samples were obtained by the in situ
ground freezing technique at six sites where foundation soil had
been improved with SCP. Inspection of samples as well as the
primary wave velocity testing conducted at a site confirmed that
the improved ground contained air exhausted from casing pipe
during SCP installation. Degree of saturation 共Sr兲 in the improved
area was lower than 77% for the sand piles and 91% for the
improved soils in the sand layers, while Sr was approximately
100% for clayey and silty soils. Degree of saturation of improved
soils depends primary on the soil grain size but other factors
including distance from sand pile, depth, and replacement ratio
have little effect on Sr. A good correlation was found between
Sr and 5% diameter of the soil; the larger 5% diameter of soils
共D5兲, the lower the degree of saturation. It appeared that the varia-
tion of Sr and D5 for soils within 1 month after the ground im-
provement work was quite similar in trend to that after more than
several years. Degree of saturation of soils after several years was
noticeably, but not significantly, higher than that shortly after
ground improvement, at most about 10%. In the current practice,
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liquefaction resistance of soils improved with SCP is estimated
based only on the increased SPT N-value. In addition to this den-
sification effect, a significant increase in liquefaction resistance
due to desaturation can be anticipated for a long time for desatu-
rated soils with Sr lower than 90%.
Undrained cyclic shear tests were also carried out on both
saturated and unsaturated improved soil specimens and effects of
desaturation on undrained cyclic shear strength were studied. The
test results were summarized in a form of liquefaction resistance
with reference to normalized SPT N-value 共N1兲. The liquefaction
resistance of the unsaturated specimens was found to be consid-
erably higher than saturated specimens with lower N1-value. The
liquefaction resistance of unsaturated specimens is in a relatively
small range between 0.4 and 0.5 irrespective of N1-value and the
degree of saturation.
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