Influence of mechanical properties on the coefficient of lateral earth pressure at rest of frozen soils

Abstract

In this paper, a theoretical expression of the coefficient of lateral earth pressure at rest (K0) for frozen soils is deduced based on a rate dependent model considering the time related parabolic strength envelope. The deduced expression is then verified with the test results of a fine-grained frozen soil. Comparison of calculated and testing results indicated that the characteristics of strength envelope is crucially important for the accuracy in K0 calculation; while it has little influence on the nonlinear increase tendency of K0 with axial stress. Further analysis shows that, with changes of parameters other than the strength envelope characteristics, the elastic solution of K0 is a limit of K0 calculated from the model. It is also found that the generally accepted empirical relationship between effective angle of internal friction and K0 for unfrozen soil is not applicable for the investigated frozen soil.