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State-dependent behavior of weathered sands incorporating progressive particle breakage in drained triaxial tests

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Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on state-dependent behavior of weathered sands incorporating progressive particle breakage by a number of drained triaxial tests to interpret the characteristics of particle breakage, the friction–dilatancy behavior, the critical-state behavior, and the state-dependent dilatancy. Weathered sands were pre-produced by temperature weathering under the weathering number N = 0, 20, and 40 within a designated range of temperatures (− 20 °C and + 110 °C). Particle breakage was quantified by Hardin’s relative breakage. Particle breakage increased with increasing axial strain, confining pressure, or weathering number. For a given initial confining pressure, a characteristic void ratio of sand existed to cause a maximum particle breakage in comparison with looser or denser void ratio for silica sand no. 3 N = 0. However, with increasing weathering number N, e.g., N = 20 and N = 40, particle breakage increased while decreasing void ratio. The characteristic void ratio of sand yielding the maximum particle breakage was also state dependent. A hyperbolic model was proposed to correlate relative breakage with plastic work per unit volume, showing more particle breakage in weathered sands with larger weathering number. Particle breakage impaired the peak-state friction resistance and dilatancy of weathered sands. For a given initial void ratio, particle breakage caused a v-shape change of peak-state basic friction angle. However, for a given initial confining pressure, the evolution of peak-state basic friction angle against particle breakage depended on the initial void ratio of sand. In the q-p′ plane, particle breakage rotated anticlockwise the dilatancy lines of weathered sands, but rotated clockwise the failure lines of weathered sands. In the e-p′α=0.7 plane, particle breakage resulted in downward translation and clockwise rotation of critical-state lines of weathered sands. In the q-p′ plane, particle breakage caused up-convex nonlinearity of critical-state lines of weathered sands that evolved diversely against weathering number. Particle breakage resulted in rotation and translation of the linear relation of peak-state dilatancy and peak-state stress ratio or peak-state state parameter. A friction–dilatancy relation was proposed to interpret the behavior of weathered sands incorporating progressive particle breakage.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41807268) and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of Chinese Academy of Sciences—China (Grant No. 2018408). A special acknowledgement should be expressed to the Geotechnical Engineering Laboratory of the University of Tokyo, Japan, that supported the implementation of the tests in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu, 610299, China

    Fangwei Yu

  2. Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Fangwei Yu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Fangwei Yu

  4. China-Pakistan Joint Research Center on Earth Sciences, Islamabad, 45320, Pakistan

    Fangwei Yu

  5. Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan

    Fangwei Yu

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Yu, F. State-dependent behavior of weathered sands incorporating progressive particle breakage in drained triaxial tests. Acta Geotech. 18, 3955–3976 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-01822-7

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