EVALUATION OF THRESHOLD STRESS

OF SUBGRADES FOR HIGHWAY

FORMATION BASED ON THE
UNCONFINED CYCLIC TRIAXIAL TEST
BY:
Elsa Eka Putri
PhD Student, School of Engineering and Information Technology
Universiti Malaysia Sabah

N.S.V Kameswara Rao

Professor, School of Engineering and Information Technology,
Universiti Malaysia Sabah

M. A. Mannan
Professor Madya, School of Engineering and Information Technology,
Universiti Malaysia Sabah
Load distribution in flexible pavement
INTRODUCTION
Subgrade as a highway or runway foundation
should be stressed well below the limits of failure
stress induced by the traffic loading and it should
not exceed the threshold stress of subgrade soils.

Threshold stress is the highest level of stress that

subgrade can still deal with so that subgrade
formation will not deform excessively due to
repeated loading of the moving vehicle.
INTRODUCTION …………………continued

Thus evaluation of the threshold stress and using it for better

design for constructing the highway and runway formation
is necessary and it can be obtained using the unconfined
Cyclic Triaxial test
LITERATURE REVIEW
Subgrade of the pavement is laid either in cutting or
on fill area, depending on the topography itself
The specimen deformation will be independent of the
frequency if the maximum number of cycles is 100,000
and it depends only on total number of cycles (Sangrey
1968, Shahu 1993)

Threshold stress is defined as a maximum stress that

can be applied to the sample that does not cause
cumulative strain greater than 10 percent in 1000 cycles
(Rubin et. al,1970; Shahu 1999)
LITERATURE REVIEW
……………..continued

Fall et. al, (1997) carried out monotonic and cyclic triaxial
loading tests on reconstituted samples of western Senegalese
laterites. In order to model the response of the soils under
the traffic load the permanent strain results and variation of
the resilient modulus during loading are considered.
Shahu (1999) conducted the tests on alluvial silty clay known
as Gangetic silt using unconfined cyclic triaxial test. He has
studied the unconfined cyclic triaxial test as a proposed test
methodology to develop the threshold stress for the soil for
the design of railway formation and found that there is
significant change in stiffness of the soil due to cyclic
loading.
LITERATURE REVIEW
……………..continued

Shahu et al. (2000) had developed a threshold stress

approach for subgrade soils with the basis of the
design such that it keeps the induced maximum
deviator stress on the subgrade well below its
threshold stress. He defined the parameter Rf which is
called cyclic stress ratio for purposes of analyzing the
results.
LITERATURE REVIEW
……………..continued
Rf (cyclic stress ratio) is defined as the ratio at which a
sudden increase in incremental plastic strain occurs
(Shahu et. al 1999).

The cyclic stress ratio was also studied by Attya et al.

(2007) who used the definition of cyclic stress ratio
developed by Brown et al. (1975) and Zhou and Gong
(2001). They define the cyclic stress ratio as the ratio
between cyclic deviator stress qcyclic to the static
deviator stress at failure qfailure.
METHODOLOGY
For evaluation of the threshold stress, tests are
conducted on locally available clayey sands with the
Liquid Limit of 53%, Plastic Limit of 23.7% and
Specific Gravity of 2.55. In order to study the threshold
stress of the soil from the unconfined cyclic test
(Shahu, 1993).

The soil sample is tested in unconfined condition. The

sample is then subjected to 100 load cycles at 1 cycle
per minute in undrained condition. The soil was then
tested to failure in undrained loading.
Sample is subjected to cyclic load with defined cyclic stress
ratio, Rf., as a percentage defined as
Rf = (qr / qu ) x 100 (1)
where qr is the cyclic deviator stress and
qu is the unconfined compressive strength

Calculating qu from an unconfined compression test on a

similar sample and also estimate the qr, cyclic stress ratio
can subsequently be determined. The cyclic deviator stress
level has been varied, while the frequency is kept constant
for all tests. The incremental cyclic deviator stress was
chosen from the small to the highest stress which can lead
to permanent deformation or the failure of the sample.
result
s
Index Properties, Compaction Characteristics,
Classification, and CBR of Soil.

Soil Properties
Liquid Limit 53 %
Plasticity Index 23.7 %
Specific Gravity 2.56
USCS SC/SP
Classification
AASHTO A-2-7

Optimum Moisture Content

Standard Proctor 18%
Max. Dry Density 1647 kg/m3

Optimum Moisture Content

Modified Proctor 13%
Max. Dry Density 1918 kg/m3
CBR value 6.5%
Unconfined Compressive Triaxial Test
D ev iato r S tress (k P a)

1200

1000

800

600

400

200

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Axial Strain (%)

Fig.1. Deviator stress of the soil from the static shear

Maximum Deviator Stress with varying cyclic stress ratio

1200

1000

800 Rf = 4.13
Rf = 6.20
(σ1-σ3)max

600 Rf = 10.34
Rf = 20.67
400 Rf = 31.01
Rf = 41.35
200 Rf = 51.68
Rf = 62.02
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Axial Strain

Fig. 2. Maximum of deviator stress occur after 100

cycles
 20

15

10

0
4.63% 6.82% 12.69% 31.54% 49.91% 37.64% 44.63% 58.13% > 60% > 60%

Rf (cyclic stress ratio)

Fig.3. Moisture content, bulk density and dry density for all samples
 The cyclic loading leads to an accumulation of
deformation that can cause the permanent deformation.

The deformation due to cyclic loading

12
10
deformation (mm)

8
6
4
samples start to fail
2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Rf (cyclic stress ratio), %

Fig 4; deformation of the sample due to cyclic shear loading

 Plastic Strain, (εp), %

Determination of threshold stress

16 Permanent
strain at
14 failure
12 Power
10 (Permanent
strain at
8 failure)
7.5
6 Failed after 44cycles

4 Failed after 10 cycles

2
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Ratio of cyclic stress (Rf), %

Figure 5; Plastic Strain vs. Rf for unconfined cyclic tests

For all the clayey sand soils samples, the permanent
strain at failures is above 7.5% in average. As the ratio
of cyclic stress, Rf, is increased, consequently the
permanent strain increases sharply. Moreover, the
permanent strain before cyclic loading was high for
the Rf above 60%.
For higher Rf, the samples will have a high
deformation. As can be seen in Figure 5 (indicated
with arrows, for Rf more than 60%), the sample is
failing with excessive strains in less number of cycles
and the permanent axial strain at 100 load cycles
becomes very high, leading to failure of the sample.
The corresponding value of plastic strain, εp after 100
cycles, for the case of unconfined tests on soil samples
compacted at optimum moisture content is of the
order of 7.5%.
CONCLUSIONS
threshold stress ratio of this soil is 70%. As the soil
samples deform quickly when the cyclic stress ratio is
70% or above,

This value is more suitable to be used as a parameter

of highway and runway formation design because it
gives a much better insight into the soil behaviour
under repeated loading, thus simulating the field soil
condition subjected to passing wheel loads.
However, since the threshold stress values are based
on laboratory tests conducted under idealized
condition
it is suggested that the design formation depth based on
this approach be increased by 25% (Shahu, 1993). This
recommendation is primarily meant to take into account
the actual highway pavement layers and drainage
prevailing in the field.