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Meisam Goudarzy, Debdeep Sarkar, Wolfgang Lieske, Torsten Wichtmann

• The paper presents an experimental study on the effect of plastic fines content on the undrained behavior and liquefaction susceptibility of sand–fines mixtures under monotonic loading. The results of undrained monotonic triaxial compression tests conducted on mixtures of Hostun sand with varying amount (0–20%) and type (kaolin and calcigel bentonite) of plastic fines are presented. The specimens were prepared with different initial densities using the moist tamping method and consolidated at two different isotropic effective stresses. The results demonstrate that for both types of plastic fines, an increase in the fines content leads to a more contractive response and lower values of mobilized deviatoric stress. Despite similar relative density and fines content, the sand–kaolin mixtures showed a more contractive behavior than the sand–calcigel specimens. The steady-state lines (SSLs) in \(\it e–p'\) space generally move downwards with increasing clay content. While the slopes of the SSLs for the clean Hostun sand and the mixtures with 10 and 20% kaolin are quite similar, the SSL lines for the specimens containing 10% or 20% calcigel run steeper or flatter, respectively. The inclination of the SSL in the \(\it q–p'\) plane was found independent of clay type and content. The sand–kaolin mixtures were observed to be more susceptible to instability and flow liquefaction than the sand–calcigel mixtures.