REVIEW PAPER ON INTERGRANULAR VOID

RATIO AND ITS RELATION WITH

COMPACTION PARAMETERS AND SOIL
STRENGTH
ASSIGNMENT 02

GROUP MEMBERS

Muhammad Hamza Farhan (Registration. No. 402165)

Muhammad Awais Qamar (Registration. No. 402377)

Muhammad Asif Mushtaq (Registration. No 401732)

Introduction
Void ratio (e) of the soil matrix is one of the most important state parameters to predict
several engineering characteristics; however, for silty sands and clayey sands having a
considerable amount of fine content, it is recognized that employing the void ratio as a state
parameter may not be suitable [1]. Recent research show that such soils behave differently
when studied for liquefaction resistance, undrained shear strength and compaction. The
global void ratio cannot reflect the contact points between sand and fines, but it is an
important factor as the fines fill the voids between large size granular particles and do not
play any role in force structure. Similarly, Hence, it is proposed that the inter-granular void
ratio (es) concept considered to be an alternative approach to explain the behaviour of soils
consisting of a mix of sand and fines.

Background of Intergranular Void Ratio

To calculate the inactive clay content on soil structure, Mitchell (1976) reportedly used the
intergranular void ratio for the first time. After a year, Kenney (1977) discovered that soil
with clay minerals and water that made up less than 40% to 50% of the total volume had
residual strength that was only as strong as quartz. In their cyclic triaxial experiment on
tailing sand with 30% particles, Troncoso & Verdugo (1985) also discovered results that were
similar. Even though these findings are in favor of the intergranular void ratio theory, Kuerbis
(1988) may be the first scientist to compare the behavior of undrained shear strength based on
intergranular void ratio. He proposed that while fines particles are merely filling up gaps in
the sand skeleton, the sand skeleton alone is the only factor controlling the measured
behavior. He therefore estimated the intergranular void ratio, neglecting the quantities of
particles as

Georgiannou (1990) proposed intergranular void ratio as

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Thevanayagam (1998) discovered a distinct steady state line for a host sand with nonplastic
particles by employing intergranular void ratio as

where, e = void ratio and fc = fines content in decimal.

The complete range of fines content is not covered by this definition of intergranular void
ratio. When sand grains come into contact with finer particles in the soil, the soil forms a
composite structure. A suitable parameter must consider the particles' active connections with
the sand force structure. Thevanayagam (1999; 2000) changed the definition of intergranular
void ratio to take fines' influence on the force structure into account as

where b = fraction of fines which actively take part in the sand force structure.

Concept of Binary Packing

Binary packing studies were looked at since the "b" parameter was purportedly included to
indicate the contribution of fines to the force structure. McGeary (1961) carried out some
experiments on spherical balls of various sizes and relative compositions to observe the
impact of size ratio and relative amount on binary particle packing. He discovered that if
large particles are sufficiently large, then little particles can migrate and fit between the gaps
of larger particles; otherwise, any increase in small particles will fall in between the contacts
of large particles. He discovered that the limiting size (diameter) ratio of large and small
particles is at least D/d = 7 for small particles to move between the spaces of large particles.

This is in line with geometric calculations that fit a small sphere between two larger spheres
without changing the connections between the larger spheres, as seen in Figure 1. When D/d
7, small particles migrate and fit between the gaps of large particles to form the "lowest" e min

(minimum void ratio) of binary mix. When D/d >> 7, the rate of decrease in e min with D/d is
minimal. Figure 1 provides an illustration of this. The arrangement cannot reach the lowest
emin when D/d 7 because small spheres will encroach between the huge spheres. His research
also revealed that as the number of small particles increased, the void ratio decreased until the

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small particles filled the spaces left by the large particles, at which point they moved into the
spaces between the large particles' contacts and caused the void ratio to rise once more, as
depicted in Figure 2. These results illustrate the variables that affect a binary mix's "extent of
interactions" between large and small particles.

Figure 1 Effect of diameter ratio on minimum void ratio of binarymix (After Lade et al. 1998)

Figure 2 Effect of fines content on minimum void ratio of binary mix (After Lade et al. 1998)

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Relationship between Intergranular Void Ratio and Compaction
Parameters
Relationship between intergranular void ratio and compaction factors i.e. Maximum Dry
Density (MDD) and Optimum Moisture Content (OMC) can be best understood with the help
of a research conducted on sand and kaolin mixtures by Alshameri B. (2020). 31 samples
were taken for the research purpose with different fine contents. Intergranular void ratio are
further calculated to obtain direct relation between MDD and OMC. The properties of soil
mixtures and compaction test results along with intergranular void ratios are mentioned in
Table 1.

Table 1 Soil properties and compaction test results (Alshameri B (2020))

Sand OMC MDD Void Intergranular

Kaolin % FC
% % (g/cm3) Ratio Void Ratio
80 20 0.2 12 1.93 0.35 0.69
70 30 0.3 12 1.89 0.38 0.97
60 40 0.4 12 1.79 0.43 1.38
50 50 0.5 16 1.72 0.5 2.00
40 60 0.6 18 1.65 0.57 2.93
30 70 0.7 20 1.57 0.66 4.53

We know that, in simple compaction test for a soil, increasing the moisture content will ease
the lubrication of soil particles and their arrangement, hence a maximum density is achieved
against a certain moisture content (OMC). From figure 3, it is evident that an increase in fine
content will cause a decrease in maximum dry densities and an increase in moisture content.

Initially, Kaolin particles will fill the voids between sand particles causing an increase in
density. It happens because fine particles reduce the inter particle friction and facilitate the
rearrangement of sand. However, increasing the fine content and water content
simultaneously causes cohesion in Kaolin particles thus it creates difficulty in movement of
kaolin and sand particles. This accelerates the achievement of MDD at same OMC for fine
contents ranging from 20%– 40%. A further increase in fine content will have a minimum
effect of intergranular void ratio on physical soil properties and density. At this stage a
parallel increase in moisture content and fine content will lead to decrease in MDD and
increase in OMC as shown in Figure 4 and Figure 05.

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 Figure 3 Compaction curves (Alshameri B (2020))

INTERGRANULAR VOID RATIO VS OMC

22

20

18

16
OMC (%)

14

12

10

8
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Intergranular Void Ratio

Figure 4 Graph between Intergranular Void Ratio and Optimum Moisture Content

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 INTERGRANULAR VOID RATIO VS MDD
2.5

2
Max. Dry Density (g/cm3)

1.5

0.5

0
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Intergranular Void Ratio

Figure 5 Graph between Intergranular Void ratio and Maximum Dry Density

Effect of inter-granular void ratio on undrained shear strength behavior of

base sand and silty sand
During earthquakes, the ground shakes causing sandy soils to lose their strength and behave
like a liquid. This phenomenon is called soil liquefaction and will cause settlement of
buildings, landslides, the failures of earth dams, or other hazards. Liquefaction occurs due to
an increase in the excess pore water pressure and a corresponding decrease in the effective
overburden stress in a soil deposit. The understanding of liquefaction phenomena has
significantly improved in recent years. Most liquefaction research was undertaken on clean
sands with the assumption that the behavior of silty sands is similar to that of clean sands.

Recent research on the nature of soil structure and its engineering stress-strain response
indicate that the soil behaves as a collection of scale-level-dependent skeletons arranged in a
particular manner. However, several studies have mentioned that the physical nature of silty
sand is entirely different from that of clean sand. Researchers recognized that the undrained
residual shear strength response depends effectively on the void ratio as a state parameter. It
is also anticipated that the global void ratio (e) cannot represent the amount of particle
contacts in the sand-silt mixture samples. As the void ratio and proportion of the coarse
grained soil or fine grained soil changes, the nature of their microstructures also changes. Due
to a large grain size distribution range and availability of voids larger than some grains, at

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low fines contents, some of the finer grains may remain inactive and swim in the void spaces
without affecting or contributing to the force chain. Therefore, it is quite important to use
new index parameters such as the inter-granular void ratios to assess the undrained residual
shear strength response of sand-silt mixtures.

Experimental Program
The present laboratory investigation has been carried out in order to study the influence of
inter-granular void ratio on the undrained residual shear strength and liquefaction potential of
sand-silt mixtures. For this purpose, a series of undrained tri-axial tests under monotonic and
cyclic loading conditions were performed on reconstituted saturated samples of Chlef sand
with variations in fine content ranging from 0 to 50%. The samples were consolidated at an
initial confining pressure of 100 kPa.

Sand samples were collected from the liquefied layer of the deposit areas at a depth of 6.0 m
(Fig. 1)

Figure 6 Geotechnical Profile of Soil Deposit at Site

Monotonic undrained compression tests were experimented on isotopically consolidated sand

samples with 0, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% non-plastic fines fraction. When granular soil
contains fines, the global void ratio of the soil e can no longer be used to describe the
behavior of the soil. This is because, up to a certain fine content, Fc (the ratio of the weight of
silt to the total weight of the sand-silt mixture), the fines occupy the void spaces only, and do
not significantly affect the engineering behavior of the sand-silt mixture.

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It was proposed to view the matrix of sand with fines as a combination of two submatrices: a
coarser grain matrix and a finer grain matrix. Consequently, they suggested that for fine
content Fc (i.e. expressed as a percentage of the total weight of the soil specimen) below a
limit in the range of 20 to 30%, the contribution of fines in the force chain is minimal.

. The concept of the inter-granular void ratio calculates the void ratio while assuming that the
volume occupied by the fines is part of the volume of voids. By neglecting the difference in
the specific gravity of coarser and finer particles, an inter-granular void ratio es was
formulated as

( 100
e+
Fc
)
e=
s where e is the global void ratio and FC is the fine content
1−(
100 )
Fc

The concept of the inter-granular void ratio suggests that the fines fill the voids formed
between the sand grains and thus the behavior of sand with a moderate amount of fines
should be governed by the inter-granular void ratio instead of the global void ratio. However,
when the inter-granular void ratio exceeds the maximum void ratio of the clean sand, there
are sufficient fines to prevent grain-to-grain contact of the sand particles. In this case, the
fines constitute the dominant structure and carry the shear forces while the coarse grains may
act as reinforcing elements.

Figure 7 Intergranular Void Ratio versus Fine Content and Initial Relative Density

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Figure shows the variation of the inter-granular void ratio versus the fine content for the
initial relative densities (Dr = 12%, 50%, and 90% before consolidation). As shown in this
figure, the inter-granular void ratio (es) increases hyperbolically with the increase of the fine
content.

Figure 8 Effect of Undrained Shear Strength of Sand-silt Mixtures (a) Stress-Strain Response, (b) Stress Path Curves

Figure shows the results of undrained compression tests carried out for different fine contents
ranging from 0 to 50% at 100 kPa confining pressure for the initial relative density (D r = 50%

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before consolidation). In general, we notice that the increase in the amount of fines leads to a
decrease in the deviatoric stress. This increase results from the role of the fines to increase the
contractancy phase of the sand-silt mixture leading to a reduction of the confining effective
pressure and consequently to a decrease in the peak resistance of the mixture.

In this case, the effect of fines on the undrained behavior of the mixture is observed for the
lower fine contents (0 and 10%), and becomes very pronounced beyond 20%.

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References
 Alshameri, B. (2020). Maximum dry density of sand–kaolin mixtures predicted by using fine content and
specific gravity. SN Applied Sciences, 2(10), 1-7.
 Rahman, M. M., & Lo, S. R. (2007). On intergranular void ratio of loose sand with small amount of fines.
 Belkhatir, M., Missoum, H., Arab, A., Della, N., & Schanz, T. (2011). Undrained shear strength of sand-silt
mixture: Effect of intergranular void ratio and other parameters. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 15(8),
1335-1342.
 Hussain, M., & Sachan, A. (2019). Effect of inter-granular void ratio on volume compressibility and
undrained shear response of base-sand and natural silty-sand of Kutch. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol.
92, p. 06002). EDP Sciences.
 Monkul, M. M., & Ozden, G. (2005, May). Effect of intergranular void ratio on one-dimensional
compression behavior. In Proceedings of international conference on problematic soils (Vol. 25, p. 27).
International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering Famagusta, Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus, Vol. 3.

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