Simple shear testing for the study of the earthquake response of clay from the Israeli continental slope

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Abstract
A study was carried out to investigate the simple shear behaviour of a clay from the Israeli continental slope, and to consider the relevance of this behaviour to the stability of the slopes during earthquake conditions. Norweigian simple shear apparatus was modified in order to enable both static and cyclic shearing of undisturbed samples taken from the slope. Static tests performed on virgin samples and on samples which had undergone extensive cycling indicated similar static strengths, despite development of large cyclic shear strains during cycling. This suggests that the stability of the slopes following completion of an earthquake would not be significantly less than it was before the onset of the earthquake; the critical period for instability would be during the earthquake. The results of the cyclic tests indicated that shear strain development accelerated once the cyclic strain reached the order of 3%. A failure criterion for the clay, relevant to cyclic loading conditions, was developed, based on this strain value, and was incorporated into a cumulative damage type of analysis for earthquake loading, using Miner's rule. This analysis was used to develop a computer program for the stability analysis of the continental slope during any given earthquake.