Liquefaction and Instability of a Granular Fill Material

The granular fills used for land reclamation in Singapore are usually dredged from the sea and contain a relatively high percent of shells. The engineering behavior of this type of granular fill may be different from that of clean sand. A series of laboratory studies were carried out to investigate the liquefaction and instability behavior of the granular fill under static loading conditions. Both static liquefaction and instability were observed to occur for loose granular fill. The instability occurred in the form of run-away deformation at a stress state below failure. The conditions for the occurrence of instability were established. The differences between liquefaction and instability were discussed.