Generally accepted methods used to evaluate the potential for liquefaction have been developed primarily for clean sands or silty sands with up to about 35% fines content. As the fines content increases in sand, the in situ penetration test data is corrected in an attempt to compensate for the effect of fines content on the penetration resistance of the sand. Correction methods have been proposed for both SPT and CPT data. Where the silt content of sand is higher than 35%, correction factors do not appear to adequately reflect the increased resistance to liquefaction. Under these conditions, the generally accepted procedure is to base the assessment on laboratory tests. The paper presents the results of a series of cyclic simple shear tests performed on silty sands and silts from profiles in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The test results confirm that the increased resistance to liquefaction may not be adequately represented by the correction methods proposed for in situ penetration data.
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