Technical Papers
Feb 22, 2023

Effect of Inherent Anisotropy on the Triaxial Compression Behavior of Coral Sand

Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 5

Abstract

A series of triaxial tests were carried out on two types of coral sand to study the inherent anisotropy behavior under triaxial stress conditions. Notably, monotonic drained and undrained tests and cyclic drained tests were conducted. At the same time, the effect of inherent anisotropy on particle breakage and the relationship between the relative breakage and the input energy were investigated. The test results show that the coral sand demonstrates very evident anisotropic behavior under triaxial stress conditions. In the monotonic tests, the effective peak friction angle and compressibility of coral sand decrease with the depositional angle, and the anisotropic behavior is more significant at low confining pressures. The axial and volumetric strains of the low-depositional-angle specimens increase faster with the number of cycles in the cyclic drained tests. In addition, the relative breakage increases with the confining pressure but decreases with the depositional angle. A unique relationship exists between the relative breakage and the input energy for the specimens with the same depositional angle, but the relative breakage decreases with the depositional angle at the same input energy.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51978305), which is gratefully acknowledged.

Notation

The following symbols are used in this paper:
AR, S, and C
aspect ratio, sphericity, and convexity;
Br
relative breakage (Hardin 1985);
BrDsieve, BrDFmin, BrDFmax, and BrDeq
relative breakage calculated by way of Dsieve, DFmax, DFmin, and Deq;
Dr
relative density;
Dsieve, DFmax, DFmin, and Deq
sieve diameter, maximum Feret diameter, minimum Feret diameter, and equivalent diameter;
1 and v
axial and volumetric strain increment;
E
input energy per unit volume;
E50
secant modulus corresponding to 50% qf;
Gs
specific gravity;
k
coefficient of permeability;
q
deviator stress;
qcyc
maximum cyclic deviator stress;
qf and q50
deviator stress at failure and half of qf;
u
excess pore water pressure;
ɛ1 and ɛv
axial and volumetric strain;
ɛ50
axial strain corresponding to q50;
θ
depositional angle;
ρmax/min
maximum and minimum dry density;
σ1
major effective principal stress;
σ3
minor effective principal stress or confining pressure;
φmax
effective peak friction angle; and
ψmax
maximum dilation angle.

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Go to International Journal of Geomechanics
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23Issue 5May 2023

History

Received: May 10, 2022
Accepted: Nov 9, 2022
Published online: Feb 22, 2023
Published in print: May 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jul 22, 2023

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Ph.D. Candidate, School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3395-6944. Email: [email protected]
Huabei Liu, M.ASCE [email protected]
Professor, School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China (corresponding author). Email: [email protected]

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