OTC-29010-MS

Normalized Modulus Reduction and Damping Ratio Curves for Bay of

Campeche Carbonate Sand

F. A. Flores Lopez, Ingenieros Geotecnistas Mexicanos; V. M. Taboada, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute; Z. X.

Gonzalez Ramirez, Instituto Politécnico Nacional; D. Cruz Roque and P. Barrera Nabor, Instituto Mexicano del
Petroleo; V. S. Dantal, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute

Copyright 2018, Offshore Technology Conference

This paper was prepared for presentation at the Offshore Technology Conference held in Houston, Texas, USA, 30 April–3 May 2018.

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Abstract
Predictive equations of normalized shear modulus (G/Gmax) and material damping ratio (D) are presented
for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand of the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco
Coastline. This was achieved using a database of 84 resonant column tests and 252 strain-controlled cyclic
direct simple shear test that provide data to define the normalized shear modulus, G/Gmax, and material
damping ratio, D, versus cyclic shear strain. The range of cyclic shear strains of the database is from 0.0001%
to 1%, and the range of carbonate content (Ca2CO3) from 10% to 100%. The curves of normalized modulus
reduction and damping ratio were organized in three groups according to the percentage of carbonate
content: 1) calcareous sands (10% to 50%), 2) siliceous carbonate sand (50% to 90%) and 3) carbonate
sands (90% to 100%). Two independent modified hyperbolic relations for normalized modulus reduction
and material damping ratio versus cyclic shear strain were developed for each group. The normalized shear
modulus was modeled using two parameters: 1) a reference strain defined as the strain at which G/Gmax is
equal to 0.5, and 2) a parameter that controls the curvature of the normalized modulus reduction curve. The
material damping ratio was modeled using four parameters: 1) a reference strain γrD defined as the strain
at which D/Dmax= 0.5, 2) a curvature parameter αD that controls the curvature of the material damping ratio
curve, 3) a maximum material damping ratio Dmax, and 4) a minimum material damping ratio Dmin. The new
empirical relationships to predict the normalized modulus reduction and material damping ratio curves as
a function of effective confining pressure are easy to apply in practice and can be used when site-specific
dynamic laboratory testing is not available. The curves of G/Gmax-γ and D-γ, are similar between silica sand
and calcareous sand. The curves of siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand are very similar, but show
a different shape and width than the curves of silica sand and calcareous sand. This indicates that when
the carbonate content is smaller than 50% there is a small effect on the curves of G/Gmax-γ and D-γ, and a
considerable effect when the carbonate content is greater than 50%.
2 OTC-29010-MS

Introduction
It is estimated (Lee, 1982) that approximately 48 percent of the world's seabed is covered by calcareous
ooze (containing more than 30% of carbonate content). Since calcareous materials are predominately
produced by living organisms, primary deposition can occur only in locations where water conditions favor
calcium producing marine organisms. These conditions are determined mainly by salinity and temperature.
Carbonate deposits in marine environment are formed by the settlement of calcium rich skeletons of marine
organisms. Present-day deposition occurs predominantly in waters that are warmer than 18oC throughout
the year. This zone generally lies between 30oN and 30oS latitude. This zone can however not be considered
a precise determinant for the occurrence of carbonate soils. Since the conditions of temperature, sea level
and salinity have changed through the geologic time, old deposits of carbonate soils can be found buried
under more recent soils that are outside zones of probable current active deposition. Carbonate sand has been
detected in most of the Bay of Campeche, mainly in the areas that make up the Cantarell and Kumaza fields.
The carbonate sands have high shear strength and may also have high compressibility that are attributed
to the low resistance to grain crushing, which consequently can lead to further degradation of stiffness.
There are few available studies focused on the measurement in the laboratory of the dynamic behavior of
marine carbonate sands. Carraro and Bortolotto (2015) as well as Senetakis and Ranjith (2017) show the
behavior of carbonate sands from Australia based on a few resonant column tests at low shear strains. The
shear modulus degradation curves shown in this work correspond to isotropically consolidated resonant
column tests and strain-controlled cyclic direct simple shear tests, which together cover a wide range of
cyclic shear strains. Additionally, the effect of effective confining pressure on the shape of the normalized
shear modulus and material damping ratio curves is reviewed.

Objectives
The objectives of the research are to:
a. Collect, develop and analyze a high-quality database of normalized shear modulus (G/Gmax) and
material damping ratio (D) obtained from available laboratory test results of isotropically consolidated
resonant column test and strain- controlled cyclic direct simple shear tests performed on Bay of
Campeche and Tabasco Coastline carbonate sands.
b. Use the database to determinate equations that predict normalized shear modulus reduction curves and
material damping ratio curves for carbonate sands. To aid geotechnical engineers in obtaining these
curves when there is no available advanced dynamic laboratory testing data for a given carbonate
sand stratum at the site.

Study area
The study area of the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline is presented in Figure 1. The Bay of
Campeche is in the southern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. According to the offshore geotechnical
campaigns performed in the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline, there are areas in which the presence
of carbonates is important, in layers of sand with thickness ranging from 1 to 40 m. Figure 2 shows the
location of geotechnical borings with presence of sands with carbonate content higher than 50%. They are
mostly concentrated at the northeastern part of the Bay of Campeche and in water depths between 35 and
50 m.
OTC-29010-MS 3

Figure 1—Location map showing the area of study in the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline.

Soil classification base on carbonate content

Carbonate soils differ in many ways from soils formed by silica particles. One important difference is
that they consist mainly of calcium carbonates, which has lower hardness, compared to quartz containing
the silica sediments. The susceptibility of carbonate soils to the disintegration into smaller fractions at
relatively low stress levels is due to this condition. They typically have higher porosity, both in its particles
and structure, resulting in a high void ratio and low density, so that they are more compressible than
the deposits of silica soils. Moreover, this type of soil is prone to alterations due to biochemical and
physicochemical processes after its deposition, under normal conditions of temperature and pressure. This
favors the formation of irregular and discontinuous strata with lenses of cemented material.
The carbonate soil classification system proposed by Clark and Walker (1977) indicates that a carbonate
sand has a carbonate content greater than 90%, a siliceous carbonate sand has a carbonate content between
50 and 90%, and a calcareous sand has a carbonate content between 10% and 50%. There are some other
classifications of carbonated soils for example of Fookes and Higginbotham (1975) and an amendment to
the classification proposed by Clark and Walker has been carried out by King et al., (1980). Figure 3 shows
the soil classification of carbonate soil proposed by Clark and Walker (1977) for soils with a degree of
cementation of very weak to moderately cemented. During the offshore field investigation, the soil samples
recovered are evaluated qualitatively to measure the percentage of carbonates through a solution of diluted
hydrochloric acid (10% concentration). In the onshore laboratory, soils samples undergoing dynamic testing
were tested using the gasometric method (ASTM D4373-96) to measure the solubility in hydrochloric acid,
which indicates the amount of carbonated material by weight in the tested sample.
4 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 2—Location of sites with presence of carbonate sand (black points correspond to geotechnical borings).

Figure 3—Carbonate soil classification proposed by Clark and Walker in 1977 (well cemented soils are not included).

Shear modulus and material damping ratio

It is a common practice for curves of normalized shear modulus (G/Gmax) and damping ratio (D) versus
cyclic shear strain γc as shown in Figure 4b to include the non-linear soil response under cyclic loading.
G is the shear modulus and Gmax is the maximum shear modulus at very low cyclic shear strains of the
order of 10-4%.
The damping ratio, D, is defined by Equation (1). The area inside a complete hysteresis loop WD,
corresponds to the energy dissipated in a cycle, and WS is the maximum stored energy in one cycle (see
Figure 4a).

(1)
OTC-29010-MS 5

Figure 4—(a) cycle of hysteresis, and (b) normalized shear modulus and damping ratio versus cyclic shear strain.

The shear modulus and material damping ratio changes with the applied cyclic shear strain. In general,
the shear modulus decreases and the material damping increases as the cyclic shear strain increases.

Database of normalized shear modulus and material damping ratio versus

cyclic shear strain
The database of G/Gmax and D curves used in this study was developed based on sands with carbonate content
higher than 10% retrieved from the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline during geotechnical campaigns
performed between 1993 and 2015 (Cruz et al., 2015). The database contains test results of isotropically
consolidated resonant column and strain-controlled cyclic direct simple shear tests. The number of cycles
of loading N, of the cyclic direct simple shear data is N=15.
Figure 5 shows histograms of 106 specimens, including graphs of carbonates content, fine content and
applied effective confining stress. This figure shows that more than 40% of the data presented carbonate
content higher than 70% (Figure 5a) with fines content concentrated in the range of 10 to 35% (Figure 5b),
and the effective confining pressure applied to the specimens varied from 40 kPa to 1100 kPa (Figure 5c).
Resonant column tests were performed on solid, cylindrical-shaped sand specimens approximately 38
mm (1.5 in.) in diameter and 76 mm (3.0 in.) in length. Each test specimen was back-pressure saturated to
about 140 kPa (20 psi) and then isotropically consolidated to three successive effective confining pressures
that are based on the in-situ confining stress σ'm (0.5σ'm, 1.0σ'm and 2.0σ'm). Strain-controlled cyclic
direct simple shear (DSS) tests were conducted on sand specimens approximately 18 to 19 mm (0.7 in.) in
height, trimmed to approximately 67 mm (2.6 in.) in diameter. Each specimen was consolidated to the in-
situ vertical effective stress and subjected to a specified sinusoidal cyclic shear strain of 0.25%, 0.5% or
1.0% at a frequency of 1.0 Hz. The test was conducted while maintaining the specimen at constant volume,
with the pore pressures estimated by measuring the changes in the vertical stress during cycling. Figure 6
shows the database of the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline sand of 84 curves of G/Gmax and material
damping ratio D obtained from resonant column and cyclic direct simple shear tests organized into two
groups with carbonate content between 10% to 50% and 50% to 100%.
6 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 5—Histograms of (a) carbonate content, (b) fine content and (c) effective confining pressure of the database.

Figure 6—Bay of Campeche database of G/Gmax and D of sands with carbonate content between 10% and 100%.

Comparison of G/Gmax and D of carbonate sands and silica sands

Figure 7 presents a comparison of G/Gmax and D curves with carbonate content higher than 10% and curves of
silica sands (CaCO3 < 10%) of the Bay of Campeche presented by Taboada et al., (2016). The G/Gmax curves
of sands with CaCO3 higher than 10% show a higher non-linear behavior than the silica sands. That is, G/
Gmax of carbonate sands start to decrease at smaller cyclic shear strains than the silica sands. The damping
ratio of carbonate sands is higher than silica sands, especially at cyclic shear strains smaller than 0.1%.

Figure 7—Comparison of normalized shear modulus G/Gmax and damping ratio D of carbonate and silica sands.
OTC-29010-MS 7

Normalized shear modulus (G/Gmax)

Equation (2) presents the expression used to develop the G/Gmax curve. It is based on a hyperbolic
relationship proposed by Harding and Drnevich (1972) and modified by Darendeli (2001).

(2)

Where Gmax is the shear modulus at very low shear strains γ, of the order of 0.0001%; α is the curvature
parameter and γr, is the reference strain when G/Gmax is equal to 0.5. The method proposed by Oztoprak and
Bolton (2013) was followed to produce a better estimated functional relationship that includes the nonlinear
behavior of the marine sands of the Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline.
The curves of normalized shear modulus for calcareous sand (i.e. sand with carbonate content between
10% and 50%), siliceous carbonate sand (i.e. sand with carbonate content between 50% and 90%) and
carbonate sands (i.e. sands with carbonate content between 90% and 100%) are shown in Figure 8. The
curvature parameter α and reference strain γr that best fit the mean, upper bound (UB) and lower bound (LB)
curves of G/Gmax using equation (2) were computed by regression analysis and are presented in Table 1.
Since a significant number of laboratory tests in silts with carbonate content greater than 10% was not
available, it was decided to gather all the curves of silt with carbonate content between 10% and 100% into
one group. Figure 8d presents the G/Gmax curves of calcareous silts, siliceous carbonate silt and carbonate
silt. The curvature parameter and reference strain that best fit the mean, upper bound and lower bound curves
of marine silts are also presented in Table 1.

Table 1—Parameters to best fit the curves of G/Gmax and damping ratio of sands and marine silts.

G/Gmax Damping ratio, D

Type of soil γr (%) γrD (%)
α αD Dmin (%) Dmax (%)
Mean LB UB Mean LB UB

Sands 1.080 0.080 0.044 0.140 1.85 0.165 0.35 0.08 1.050 16.000
(Taboada et
al., 2016)
Calcareous 1.149 0.088 0.042 0.178 1.301 0.197 0.224 0.177 1.280 17.134
sand
Siliceous 0.932 0.037 0.013 0.117 1.301 0.045 0.072 0.025 1.861 12.007
carbonate
sand
Carbonate 0.924 0.032 0.010 0.102 1.453 0.052 0.079 0.032 1.476 12.363
sand
Silt 1.000 0.057 0.011 0.217 1.053 0.068 0.095 0.048 1.053 11.898
(calcareous,
siliceous
carbonate
and
carbonate)
8 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 8—G/Gmax – γ curves of (a) calcareous sand, (b) siliceous carbonate sand, (c) carbonate sand and (d) marine silts.

Figure 9 presents a comparison of the upper and lower bounds of G/Gmax versus shear strain for silica sand
proposed by Taboada et al., (2016), calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand. The upper
and lower bounds of G/Gmax of silica sand are very similar to those of calcareous sands. This indicates that G/
Gmax is not significantly affected when the carbonate content is less than 50%. The upper and lower bounds
of G/Gmax of siliceous carbonate and carbonate sand are very similar and very different than the calcareous
and silica sand. This indicates that G/Gmax is affected when the carbonate content is higher than 50%.

Figure 9—Comparison of upper and lower bounds of G/Gmax – γ of Bay of Campeche sand.
OTC-29010-MS 9

Damping ratio D
The best functional relationship to obtain the curves of damping ratio versus shear strain of the Bay of
Campeche and Tabasco Coastline is the following modified hyperbolic equation proposed by González and
Romo (2011):

(3)

Where Dmax and Dmin are the maximum and minimum damping ratios; γrD is the reference shear strain
corresponding to 0.5 of the normalized damping ratio (D/Dmax = 0.5) and αD is the curvature parameter of D-
γ. The database of calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand, carbonate sand and silt with carbonate content
between 10% and 100% is presented in Figure 10. Equation (3) was used to define the upper bound, mean
and lower bound of the curves of damping versus shear strain presented in this figure.

Figure 10—Curves of D-γ of (a) calcareous sand, (b) siliceous carbonate sand, (c) carbonate sand and (d) marine silts.

A regression analysis was performed to find the best fit of the upper bound, mean and lower bound
curves of damping ratio using equation (3). The values of the curvature parameter aD and reference strain
γrD for these three curves are presented in Table 1. The values of Dmin and Dmax that define the mean curve
of damping ratio versus shear strain are also presented in Table 1.
Figure 11 shows a comparison of the upper and lower bounds of damping ratio versus shear strain for
silica sand (Taboada et al., 2016), calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand of the Bay
of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline. The damping curves of silica sand and carbonate sand are very similar,
although the bandwidth is smaller in calcareous sand than in silica sand. The curves of siliceous carbonate
sand and carbonate sand are very similar and show a different shape and width than the curves of silica sand
and calcareous sand. This indicates that when the carbonate content is smaller than 50%, there is a small
10 OTC-29010-MS

effect on the curve of damping ratio and an important effect when the carbonate content is greater than 50%.
The damping ratio of siliceous carbonate and carbonate sands is higher than the calcareous and silica sands
at shear strains smaller than about 0.1% and show an asymptotic value at shear strains larger than 0.4%.

Figure 11—Comparison of upper and lower bound of damping ratio of sands with different carbonate contents.

Modelling normalized shear modulus G/Gmax

Equation (2) was adopted to model the variation of G/Gmax with γ. The model uses only two parameters,
the curvature parameter α and the reference strain γr. The relationship between the reference strain and the
effective confining pressure σ′m of sands with different carbonate content was obtained, as shown in Figure
12. The equations for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand that relate γr with σ′m
normalized with the atmospheric pressure (Pa) are presented below.

(4)

Figure 12—Relationship between reference strain γr and normalized effective confining pressure for different CaCO3 content.

The effective confining pressure σ′m is obtained using the following equation:

(5)
OTC-29010-MS 11

Where, is the effective vertical stress, is the effective horizontal stress and Ko is the coefficient of
earth pressure at rest.
Figure 13, Figure 14 and Figure 15 show the variation of the normalized shear modulus as a function
of the effective confining pressure varying between 100 kPa and 1000 kPa for calcareous sand, siliceous
carbonate sand and carbonate sand, respectively. A constant curvature parameter (i.e. independent of
effective confining pressure) was used to develop the curves of normalized shear modulus as a function of
effective confining pressure presented in these figures. The values of the curvature parameter α used for
the different ranges of carbonate content are indicated in Figure 13, Figure 14 and Figure 15 and presented
in Table 1.

Figure 13—G/Gmax predicted with equations (2) and (4) as a function of σ′m for calcareous sand.

Figure 14—G/Gmax predicted with equations (2) and (4) as a function of σ′m for siliceous carbonate sand.
12 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 15—G/Gmax predicted with equations (2) and (4) as a function of σ′m for carbonate sand.

Validation of the normalized shear modulus prediction

A comparison was made between the curves developed with the equations (2) and (4) and the laboratory
measurements for different effective confining pressures. This comparison is presented in Figure 16, Figure
17 and Figure 18 for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand, respectively.

Figure 16—Measured and calculated G/Gmax values as a function of effective confining pressure of calcareous sand.
OTC-29010-MS 13

Figure 17—Measured and calculated G/Gmax values as a function of effective confining pressure of siliceous carbonate sand.

Figure 18—Measured and calculated G/Gmax values as a function of effective confining pressure of carbonate sand.

Figure 16, Figure 17 and Figure 18 indicate a strong agreement between the predicted and measured
values of G/Gmax as a function of confining pressures for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and
carbonate sand, respectively. The agreement is best for the resonant column data.
Figure 19 shows the comparison of 902 measurements of G/Gmax using resonant column and strain-
controlled cyclic direct simple shear and calculated values of G/Gmax using equations (2) and (4) for the three
ranges of carbonate content of sand considered in this study (calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and
carbonate sand). This figure shows a 1:1 line representing that the calculated value is equal to the measured
value and this line multiplied by a factor of 0.7 (30% underprediction) and 1.3 (30% overprediction). There
is an excellent agreement between the measured and calculated values of G/Gmax for the case of resonant
column data (G/Gmax = 1.0 to G/Gmax = 0.2). The measured values of G/Gmax with strain- controlled cyclic
direct simple shear tests are over predicted in most of the cases especially for measured values of G/Gmax
< 0.1.
14 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 19—Comparison of 902 measured values of G/Gmax with calculated values for three ranges of carbonate content.

Modelling of material damping ratio

Equation (3) was adopted to model the material damping ratio D versus cyclic shear strain γ. The model
uses four parameters: 1) curvature parameter αD, 2) reference strain γrD, defined as the cyclic shear strain
where D/Dmax = 0.5, 3) maximum damping ratio Dmax, and 4) minimum damping ratio Dmin. The relationship
found between normalized effective confining pressure and reference strain γrD, minimum damping Dmin and
(Dmax - Dmin) are presented in Figure 20, Figure 21 and Figure 22, for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate
sand and carbonate sand, respectively. The equations that relate γrD with effective confining pressure σ′m
normalized with the atmospheric pressure (Pa) for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate
sand are presented below.

(6)

The relationship between minimum material damping ratio Dmin with normalized confining pressure
presented in Figure 21 is expressed by the following equations for carbonate sand, siliceous carbonate sand
and carbonate sand:

(7)

The relationship between Dmax - Dmín with normalized effective confining pressure presented in Figure 22
for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate is described by the following equations:
OTC-29010-MS 15

(8)

Figure 20—Relationship between γrD and normalized σ′m for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand.

Figure 21—Relationship between Dmin and normalized σ′m for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand.

Figure 22—Relationship between Dmax-Dmin and σ′m/Pa for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand.

Figure 23, Figure 24 and Figure 25 show the variation of material damping ratio versus cyclic shear
strain with effective confining pressure for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand,
respectively. The curvature parameter αD was considered independent of the effective confining pressure
and its constant value is presented in Table 1, Figure 23, Figure 24 and Figure 25.
16 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 23—Prediction of D-γ with equations (3), (6), (7) and (8) for different effective confining pressures for calcareous sand.

Figure 24—Prediction of D-γ with equations (3), (6), (7) and (8) for
different effective confining pressures for siliceous carbonate sand.
OTC-29010-MS 17

Figure 25—Prediction of D-γ with equations (3), (6), (7) and (8) for different effective confining pressures for carbonate sand.

Validation of damping ratio prediction

A comparison between predicted damping ratio with equations (3), (6), (7) and (8), and laboratory
measurements for different confining pressures are presented in Figure 26, Figure 27 and Figure 28 for
calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand, respectively.
Figure 29 presents the measured versus predicted damping ratio for calcareous sand, siliceous carbonate
sand and carbonate sand for a total of 902 measured points. A good prediction is observed when the
measured damping ratio is greater than 4% mostly falling within a band of ±30% of the measured values.
However, the equation over predicts the damping ratio at lower shear strains and this may be considerd as
a conservative estimate for seismic site response analysis.

Figure 26—Comparison of measured and predicted damping ratio

for different effective confining pressures for calcareous sand.
18 OTC-29010-MS

Figure 27—Comparison of measured and predicted damping ratio for

different effective confining pressures for siliceous carbonate sand.

Figure 28—Comparison of measured and predicted damping ratio

for different effective confining pressures for carbonate sand.
OTC-29010-MS 19

Figure 29—Measured and predicted D for carbonate sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand (902 data points).

Summary and Conclusions

Predictive equations for estimating normalized shear modulus and material damping ratio of calcareous
sand, siliceous carbonate sand and carbonate sand are presented in this paper. The equations are based
on a modified hyperbolic model and a statistical analysis of existing isotropically consolidated resonant
column and strain-controlled cyclic direct simple shear test results for 106 specimens obtained from the
Bay of Campeche and Tabasco Coastline. Two independent modified hyperbolic relationships are fitted
to model stiffness (G/Gmax)-strain using two parameters and material damping ratio-strain curves using
four parameters. Variables used in the equation (2) for normalized shear modulus are: confining pressure,
shear-strain amplitude, a reference strain, defined as the shear strain at which the shear modulus has
reduced to 0.5Gmax, and a curvature parameter which controls the rate of modulus reduction, such as
the model suggested by Darendeli (2001). For simplicity, the curvature parameter was given a constant
value independent of effective confining pressure. A linear relation between the reference strain γr and the
normalized effective confining stress with respect to the atmospheric pressure, , was established for
the most common range of effective confining stresses . This was given in equation
(4). The equation (3) for damping ratio, D, is expressed in terms of the reference strain, defined as the shear
strain for a 50% increase in material damping ratio (i.e. D/Dmax = 0.5), a curvature parameter which controls
the rate of material damping ratio increase, the minimum material damping ratio Dmin, and the maximum
material damping ratio Dmax, such as the equation suggested by Gonzalez and Romo (2011). For simplicity,
the curvature parameter was given a constant value independent of effective confining pressure. For the
most common range of effective confining stresses , a linear relation was established
between the reference strain γrD and the normalized effective confining stress with respect to the atmospheric
pressure, , a power law between Dmin and , and a linear relation between (Dmax - Dmin) and :
these were given in equations (6), (7) and (8), respectively.
The G/Gmax – γ of silica sand and calcareous sand are very similar and a significat difference was not
observed between them. The siliceous carbonate and carbonate sand showed a significant difference with
20 OTC-29010-MS

regards to the silica sand and calcareous sand. The sand with carbonate content higher than 50% showed
a more significant non-linear behavior than the sand with carbonate content smaller that 50% and the G/
Gmax move to the left. This indicates that the carbonate content influences the shape of the curves of G/Gmax
when it is higher than 50%.
With regards to the curves of D-γ, similar results were observed between silica sand and calcareous sand,
although the bandwidth is smaller in calcareous sand than in silica sand. The curves of siliceous carbonate
sand and carbonate sand are very similar and show a different shape and width than the curves of silica sand
and calcareous sand. This indicates that when the carbonate content is smaller than 50% there is a small
effect on the curve of damping ratio and an important effect when the carbonate content is greater than 50%.
The damping ratio of siliceous carbonate and carbonate sands is higher than the calcareous and silica sands
at shear strains smaller than about 0.1% and show an asymptotic value at shear strains larger than 0.4%.

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