Abstract
Particle breakage at coral sands–structure interface is common in marine geological environments and is critical to the stability of geotechnical structures. However, due to the knowledge gap regarding the relationship between structure roughness and coral sand particle breakage, previous studies have not provided a clear understanding of this phenomenon. To address this gap, we conducted ring shear tests to investigate the evolution of the fractal dimension of particle breakage and its dependence on structure surface roughness and vertical stress based on fractal theory. The results show that both the roughness of the steel plate simulating the structure surface in the ring shear test and the particle size of coral sand have significant impacts on the evolutions of particle breakage and morphology at the contact interface. In detail, the particle size distributions (PSDs) of coral sands after shearing have obvious self-similarity and converge to the limit distribution state, especially when the sands contain more large particles. When the steel plate is smooth, the fractal dimension of the broken coral sand is relatively low, which indicates an early stage of fractal dimension development. Moreover, the relationship between the fractal dimension and vertical stress exerted on a rough steel plate can be approximately described using a second-order polynomial function. Moreover, there exists a critical vertical stress that corresponds to the maximum fractal dimension for each kind of coral sand in our tests. The particle breakage rates of coral sand samples on smooth steel plates are substantially lower than those on rough steel plates.
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All data generated during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
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Acknowledgements
For the funding of the first author’s the Key Technologies R&D Program of Guangxi (GUIKE AB22080073), we express our sincerest gratitude. We are furthermore grateful for the scientific discussions and insights provided by our friends and colleagues from the State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering.
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Funding provided by the Key Technologies R&D Program of Guangxi (GUIKE AB22080073).
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All authors contributed to the conception and design of the manuscript. Wei and Xin conducted the research and wrote the manuscript draft; Ruan and Yao supervised the main author’s research; Ma and Xu reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Wei, H., Xin, L., Ruan, H. et al. Fractal characteristics of particle breakage on the coral sands–structure interface during ring shear tests. Mar Geophys Res 45, 10 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-024-09543-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-024-09543-6