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Creep characteristics of calcareous coral sand in the South China Sea

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Abstract

In recent years, a series of lands have been built or enlarged on the top of some natural coral reefs by the means of reclamation in the South China Sea (SCS). The reclamation material used is the calcareous coral sand extracted from nearby lagoons. As a kind of special geotechnical material, its mechanical characteristics are different from that of conventional terrestrial soil. It is of great significance to study the time-dependent creep characteristics of the calcareous coral sand for evaluating the post-construction settlement of some important structures built on these reclaimed lands. In this study, a series of drained triaxial tests are conducted to study the long-term creep characteristics of calcareous coral sand under different loading types (single-level and multi-level tests). Based on the experimental results, it is found that calcareous coral sand indeed shows considerable time-dependent creep deformation under a constant stress state. There are two development modes for the volumetric strain versus axial strain curves during creeping under single-level loading; while there is only one development mode under multi-level loading. It is shown that the unfavorable effect of the air entrapped in the micro inner cavities of coral sand particles leads to a spurious volumetric strain measured in the middle and late stages of creep. The determination of the particle size distribution after the tests shows that the relative slippage and rearrangements of sand particles play the leading role in the creep deformation process for calcareous coral sand. The effect of sand particle breakage on creeping is not obvious. Based on these test data, a novel four-parameter mathematical model is proposed to model the creep characteristics of the calcareous coral sand in the South China Sea.

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Acknowledgements

We sincerely appreciate the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Project No. 51879257.

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China under Project No. 51879257.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, Hubei, China

    Jianhong Ye, Yeernaer Haiyilati & Meng Cao

  2. School of Safety Science and Emergency Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, 430070, Hubei, China

    Yeernaer Haiyilati & Meng Cao

  3. Tianjin Research Institute for Water Transport Engineering, M.O.T., Tianjin, 300456, China

    Dianjun Zuo

  4. Xingfa School of Mining Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan, 430073, Hubei, China

    Xiuwei Chai

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  1. Jianhong Ye
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Correspondence to Jianhong Ye.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Proportion of creep strain of the calcareous coral sand when creep tests are finished (single-level loading)

Dry density (g/cm3)

\({\sigma }_{3}^{^{\prime}}\)(kPa)

q (kPa)

\({\varepsilon }_{0}\)(%)

\({\varepsilon }_{c}\)(%)

\({\varepsilon }_{\mathrm{Total}}\)(%)

Creep strain percentage (%)

1.45

100

100

0.67

0.16

0.83

19

200

1.28

0.23

1.51

15

300

1.91

0.34

2.25

15

450

3.04

0.45

3.49

13

600

4.63

0.63

5.26

12

200

0.75

0.26

1.01

26

400

1.65

0.34

1.99

17

200

600

2.51

0.41

2.92

14

800

3.87

0.59

4.46

13

1000

5.71

0.93

6.64

14

400

1.56

0.28

1.84

15

800

3.49

0.47

3.96

12

400

1200

5.01

0.62

5.63

11

1600

7.04

0.63

7.67

8

2000

10.64

1.03

11.67

9

100

0.55

0.23

0.78

29

200

0.92

0.27

1.19

20

1.65

100

400

1.56

0.42

1.98

21

600

2.85

0.44

3.29

13

800

4.01

0.54

4.55

12

200

0.48

0.21

0.69

30

400

0.94

0.36

1.30

28

200

600

1.64

0.38

2.02

19

800

2.43

0.48

2.91

16

1000

3.54

0.62

4.16

15

500

1.61

0.41

2.02

20

400

1000

2.53

0.44

2.97

15

1500

3.33

0.63

3.96

16

2000

5.03

0.59

5.62

10

Appendix 2: Proportion of creep strain of the calcareous coral sand when creep tests are finished (multiple-level loading)

Dry density

(g/cm3)

\({\sigma }_{3}^{^{\prime}}\)(kPa)

q (kPa)

\({\varepsilon }_{0}\)(%)

\({\varepsilon }_{c}\)(%)

\({\varepsilon }_{Total}\) (%)

Creep strain percentage (%)

1.45

100

100

0.34

0.15

0.49

31

200

0.28

0.33

0.61

54

400

1.31

0.34

1.65

21

100

0.36

0.17

0.53

32

200

0.05

0.18

0.23

78

200

400

0.57

0.29

0.86

34

600

0.52

0.33

0.85

39

800

0.64

0.51

1.15

44

100

0.15

0.15

0.30

50

200

0.02

0.07

0.09

77

400

0.08

0.30

0.38

79

400

600

0.03

0.28

0.31

90

800

0.03

0.39

0.42

93

1200

0.84

0.58

1.42

41

1600

0.03

1.14

1.17

97

100

0.23

0.15

0.38

39

200

0.09

0.18

0.27

67

1.65

100

400

0.47

0.35

0.82

43

600

0.40

0.44

0.88

50

100

0.13

0.15

0.28

54

200

0.06

0.13

0.19

68

200

400

0.38

0.26

0.64

41

600

0.12

0.36

0.48

75

800

0.45

0.43

0.88

49

100

0.28

0.02

0.30

7

200

0.04

0.07

0.11

64

400

0.06

0.24

0.30

80

400

600

0.03

0.18

0.22

82

800

0.03

0.25

0.28

89

1200

0.36

0.47

0.83

57

1600

0.15

0.31

0.46

67

2000

≈0

1.31

1.31

100

Appendix 3: Model parameters of modified Burgers soft-matter model for the calcareous coral sand (single-level loading)

Dry density (g/cm3)

\({\sigma }_{3}^{^{\prime}}\)(kPa)

q (kPa)

E1 (MPa)

\({\eta }_{1}\)

C

β

1.45

100

100

1.733

60.146

16.815

0.289

200

2.326

65.803

19.94

0.265

300

2.686

61.955

14.164

0.245

450

2.563

71.622

15.674

0.229

600

2.016

52.286

19.900

0.247

200

2.543

202.146

9.103

0.220

400

4.482

167.052

18.002

0.239

200

600

5.430

529.240

25.136

0.255

800

4.164

321.049

22.995

0.244

1000

2.773

121.516

18.041

0.227

400

5.568

217.076

10.091

0.184

800

6.289

184.971

10.016

0.159

400

1200

8.392

287.890

13.156

0.185

1600

11.188

658.118

20.592

0.200

2000

4.777

653.488

46.264

0.272

100

2.134

159.731

2.717

0.176

200

4.346

80.288

5.281

0.196

1.65

100

400

2.553

232.302

6.167

0.156

600

3.844

107.735

9.096

0.161

800

3.874

126.230

9.851

0.160

200

4.404

252.107

12.330

0.232

400

4.319

318.055

12.508

0.208

200

600

4.580

247.576

26.110

0.234

800

7.105

852.303

19.995

0.219

1000

7.396

572.481

24.963

0.242

500

4.029

124.352

7.705

0.166

400

1000

7.007

304.348

18.245

0.190

1500

12.397

488.071

17.951

0.195

2000

10.096

420.667

23.579

0.167

Appendix 4: Model parameters of modified Burgers soft-matter model for the calcareous coral sand (multiple-level loading)

Dry density (g/cm3)

\({\sigma }_{3}^{^{\prime}}\)(kPa)

q (kPa)

E1 (MPa)

\({\eta }_{1}\)

C

β

1.45

100

100

168.321

3893

393

0.150

200

147.710

3731

368

0.159

400

295.639

6264

1018

0.208

100

187.652

5000

826

0.263

200

318.319

26637

1953

0.285

200

400

492.61

93050

5884

0.302

600

336.13

25406

12292

0.364

800

457.4

40839

17123

0.377

100

328.41

31366

690

0.237

400

308.64

22594

3110

0.289

400

600

455.93

126190

12074

0.389

800

287.05

105726

39138

0.466

1200

630.25

22309

46012

0.496

1600

507.94

51493

136286

0.552

1.65

100

100

309.21

5203

597

0.214

200

540.102

44270

1648

0.247

400

507.87

50484

2900

0.260

600

720.89

83417

4207

0.262

100

392.16

104269

523

0.208

200

410.26

107368

1785

0.235

200

400

3584

7977

2487

0.247

600

456.62

42875

3322

0.263

800

785

155770

7207

0.289

100

807.7

18620

6134

0.267

400

585.9

60025

3108

0.275

600

859.9

236905

11871

0.373

400

800

676.2

188527

20613

0.412

1200

939.7

146052

55710

0.431

1600

1124.4

247389

85607

0.492

2000

685.87

73813

267594

0.544

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Ye, J., Haiyilati, Y., Cao, M. et al. Creep characteristics of calcareous coral sand in the South China Sea. Acta Geotech. 17, 5133–5155 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01634-1

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