Silty clay is a common compressible soil found in many engineering projects, where its deformation behavior is particularly complex under cyclic loading. This study uses the GDS dynamic triaxial testing system to examine how silty clay deforms under different moisture contents, confining pressures, and cyclic stress ratios (CSR). The results show that the cumulative strain of silty clay follows a three-phase pattern: an initial rapid increase (N = 0-300), followed by a slower rise (N = 300-1000), and finally reaching a stable state (N > 1000). Among the factors tested, CSR has the most significant impact on cumulative strain, with moisture content coming second, while confining pressure has a relatively minor effect. After 1000 cycles, cumulative strain shows a clear linear growth trend. Linear fitting analysis indicates that the uncertainty in the fitted curve is influenced by moisture content, confining pressure, and CSR. Uncertainty is greater at both low and high moisture content levels, while it is lower under moderate moisture conditions. These findings provide valuable insights into predicting soil deformation in engineering applications, helping to improve our understanding of silty clay behavior under cyclic loading.

To address the long-term settlement of embankments over structured soft soil during the in-service stage, artificial structured soils with different interparticle bonding strengths and initial void ratios were prepared, and repeated triaxial loading tests were conducted to investigate the effects of bonding strength, initial void ratio, stress amplitude and cycle number on the accumulative deformation characteristics. The results show that the relationship between the accumulative plastic strain and cycle number can be classified into stable, critical and destructive types, and an empirical relationship between the stress sensitivity and dynamic stress ratio is established. Furthermore, two different empirical models for accumulative plastic strain are presented that incorporate soil structure. Reasonable agreement between the model predictions and the experimental results for different natural soft soils demonstrate that the proposed models can accurately capture the accumulative deformation behaviour of structured soils. In addition, considering the accumulated plastic deformation of soil subjected to cyclic loading as static creep, a simplified method for calculating three-dimensional cyclic accumulative deformation is proposed by implementing the proposed model in a finite-element simulation utilizing an implicit stress integration algorithm. Finally, the effects of the dynamic stress level and structural strength on the accumulative deformation are analyzed. This has important implications in controlling the long-term settlement of embankment in soft soil area.

The horizontal displacement of a reinforced-soil retaining wall is a common deformation mode of seismic damage. The horizontal displacement time history and accumulative deformation after earthquakes are important parameters for evaluating the seismic performance of a reinforced-soil retaining wall, but theoretical study on this issue is scarce at the moment. In this study, an analytical method is proposed to calculate the horizontal displacement time history of a block-faced reinforced soil retaining wall. The method is based on the pseudodynamic method and differential kinematics equations, and this method was used to calculate the reinforcement material's tensile displacement and overall displacement in the reinforced area under earthquake motion, while simultaneously taking into account the accumulative deformation. The rationality and accuracy of this method are verified through comparison with model experiments and existing theories. Besides, parameter analysis was carried out to further confirm the applicability of this method. The study shows the method takes into account the influence of the accumulated deformation, and can effectively calculate the horizontal displacement time history of the block-faced reinforced soil retaining wall under larger magnitudes. Although the calculated values are smaller than the actual deformation, they are still relatively close.

Foam concrete is characterized by lightweight, self-compacting and high flowability, thereby widely used as a subgrade bed filler. High-speed railway subgrades usually experience inhomogeneous deformation due to the occurrence of freezing-thawing cycles in seasonally frozen soil areas. It is essential to study the deformation behavior of foam concrete under the coupling effect of freezing-thawing cycles and dynamic loading. In this paper, dynamic triaxial tests were performed to study the accumulative deformation of the foam concrete under different numbers of freezing-thawing cycles, freezing temperatures, amplitudes and frequencies of dynamic loading. Based on the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests, the characteristics of the pore structure were analyzed quantitatively by introducing the directional distribution frequency and fractal dimension. The research results illustrate that the damage caused by freezing-thawing progress to the pore structure results in more significant deformation of the foam concrete subjected to dynamic loading. There exists an accumulative damage effect induced by the coupling action of long-term dynamic loading and freezing-thawing progress on the microstructure and mechanical properties of foam concrete. The development of the fractal dimension agrees with that of the accumulative strain, indicating a close connection between the microstructure and the dynamic behavior of foam concrete. The findings concluded in this study contribute to a sufficient understanding of the performance of foam concrete used as high-speed railway subgrade fillers subjected to seasonal freezing.