Abstract: As a strategic project of China’s “Maritime Silk Road”, the man-made structures on islands and reefs in the South China Sea have to resistance the cyclic environmental loads such as waves and earthquakes, as well as the ground subsidence induced by seismic events. In this paper, the volumetric strain in the reconsolidation induced by the dynamic loading liquefaction is evaluated by the GDS triaxial testing device. The results indicate that, the volumetric strain in the reconsolidation by the dynamic loading liquefaction increases with the confining pressure and mean grain size in the sample; while the effect of cyclic stress ratio on the volumetric strain in the reconsolidated coral sand samples is only related to the time of dynamic load applied after liquefaction, not the size of grains in the sample.

Key words: coral sand, liquefaction, volumetric strain in reconsolidation, grain size distribution