Particle breakage and the mobilized drained shear strengths of sand

This paper presents particle breakage and the mobilized drained shear strengths of sand with the purpose of clarifying the influence of particle breakage on the mobilized shear strengths of sand. Several drained triaxial tests were carried out on Silica sand No.5 under 3 MPa confining pressure to produce the pre-crushed sands in simulating the high- pressure shear process on soil to result in particle breakage, and then the pre-crushed sands were re- sheared in series of drained triaxial tests to investigate the mobilized strengths of the pre-crushed sands in detecting the influence of particle breakage. It was found that, by deteriorating strain-stress behavior, particle breakage resulted in change of stress-dilataney behavior in translation and rotation of the relation of the dilatancy factor and the effective principal stress ratio. For a given initial void ratio, particle breakage resulted in impairment of dilatancy behavior of soil to be more contractive in deterioration of the mobilized friction angle and the mobilized dilatancy angle and reduction of void ratio. However, particle breakage resulted in increase of the mobilized basic friction angle especially before failure. In addition, the influence of particle breakage on the mobilized strengths was revealed to be influenced by the shear stress-strain state.

An elasto-plastic constitutive model for soft rock considering mobilization of strength

A new elasto-plastic constitutive model is presented in the framework of plasticity theory. The strength characteristics of a diatomaceous soft rock is investigated. The friction angle and cohesion of soft rock are mobilized as a function of plastic strain. A hyperbolic hardening function for the mobilized friction and a mixed parabolic and exponential equation for the mobilized cohesion are proposed. In view of the unified strength theory and the mobilizations of strength components, a yield function is given. A plastic potential function is determined by using the non-associated plastic flow rule. An elasto-plastic constitutive model is developed and verified. The results indicate that the proposed model can predict the behavior of soft rock accurately. The advantages of the proposed constitutive model are analyzed. The evidences support that the proposed constitutive model is a mixed hardening/softening model. A hump hardening/softening function for mobilized friction is extended to a more generalized condition.

Nonlinear criterion for strength mobilization in brittle failure of rock and its extension to the tunnel scale

As underground excavations are getting deeper and field stresses increase, the behavior of intact rock blocks plays an increasingly important role in understanding and estimating the overall rock mass strength. To model the brittle behavior of intact rock blocks, the stress–strain curve is usually idealized considering a linear strength mobilization approach(cohesion-weakening-friction-strengthening, CWFS),however, it is well recognized that rock presents a nonlinear behavior in terms of the confining stress.This study extends the strength mobilization in brittle failure of rock using nonlinear criteria. To determine the model parameters, a standard statistical method that uses the complete laboratory stress–strain curves of the intact rock is employed. Several hypotheses of linear and nonlinear models are statistically compared for different types of rock and confining stress levels. Results demonstrate that the best approach to model the brittle failure of rock is to consider a nonlinear strength envelope, such as the Hoek-Brown criterion assuming a residual uniaxial compressive strength different from zero and a mi parameter that increases, both with simultaneous mobilization. This model helps to recreate highconfining conditions and a more realistic transition between peak and post-peak strength. The obtained parameters are discussed and compared with literature values to verify the validity and to develop guidelines for the estimation of parameters, providing an objective mobilization criterion. Finally, the nonlinear model was applied to a finite element code and extended to a tunnel scale in the brittle rock under high-stress conditions. A reasonable fit between the simulations and the in-situ overbreak measurements was found.

Evolution of deformation property and strength component mobilization for thermally treated Beishan granite under compression

The cohesion weakening and friction strengthening(CWFS)model for rock reveals the strength components mobilization process during progressive brittle failure process of rock,which is very helpful in understanding mechanical properties of rock.However,the used incremental cyclic loading−unloading compression test for the determination of strength components is very complicated,which limits the application of CWFS model.In this paper,incremental cyclic loading−unloading compression test was firstly carried out to study the evolution of deformation and the strength properties of Beishan granite after various temperatures treated under different confining pressures.We found the axial and lateral unloading modulus are closely related to the applied stress and damage state of rock.Based on these findings,we can accurately determine the plastic strain during the entire failure process using conventional tri-axial compression test data.Furthermore,a strength component(cohesive and frictional strength)determination method was developed using conventional triaxial compression test.Using this method,we analyzed the variation of strength mobilization and deformation properties of Beishan granite after various temperatures treated.At last,a non-simultaneous strength mobilization model for thermally treated granite was obtained and verified by numerical simulation,which demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed strength determination method.