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The effect of size on the strength of coarse rock aggregates and large rockfill samples through experimental data

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Abstract

Testing the mechanical response of coarse granular materials requires very large and expensive laboratory equipments. During the 1960s, pioneering experimental programs were carried out on several rockfill dam materials, and those results are still a reference for engineers and researchers. However, only few experimental works have been reported to this day, and due to the scarcity of empirical data, the role of the size effect caused by grain crushing is not well known. To improve understanding of this rarely studied issue and the influence of individual particle strength, this paper analyzes the size effect on rock aggregate crushing strength and its connection with the shear envelope of rockfills. The suitability of the 4-parameter Weibull equation to describe size effects on the crushing strength reported in the literature is discussed. Furthermore, a Weibull statistical analysis was carried out for a wide number of experimental results on rock aggregates, where it has been observed that strength decreases with particle size. In parallel, the results of large triaxial tests on homothetic scaled rockfill samples of 250 and 1,000 mm in diameter reveal that the coarser the material, the higher the amount of grain breakage and the lower the shear strength. The impact of size effects obtained from the experiments is analyzed and discussed in terms of the factor of safety of rockfill slope stability. Furthermore, the results are compared with the only existing theoretical method that links the rock aggregate with the strength of the granular assembly. Good agreement between the empirical results and this theoretical method has been confirmed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ecole Centrale Nantes, CNRS UM 6183, LUNAM University, 1 rue de la Noë, BP 92101, 44321, Nantes Cedex 3, France

    Carlos Ovalle, Christophe Dano & Pierre-Yves Hicher

  2. Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Carlos Ovalle

  3. Tractebel Engineering - Coyne et Bellier, Gennevilliers, France

    Etienne Frossard

  4. State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, China

    Wei Hu

  5. CETE de Lyon, Lyon, France

    Siegfried Maiolino

Authors
  1. Carlos Ovalle
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  2. Etienne Frossard
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  3. Christophe Dano
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  4. Wei Hu
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  5. Siegfried Maiolino
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  6. Pierre-Yves Hicher
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Correspondence to Christophe Dano.

Additional information

Presented at the 8th European Solid Mechanics Conference in the Graz University of Technology, Austria, 9–13 July 2012.

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Ovalle, C., Frossard, E., Dano, C. et al. The effect of size on the strength of coarse rock aggregates and large rockfill samples through experimental data. Acta Mech 225, 2199–2216 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-014-1127-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00707-014-1127-z

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