Influences of Principal Stress Rotation on the Deformation of Saturated Loess under Traffic Loading

Abstract

This study focuses on the undrained behavior of saturated remolded loess under long-term traffic loading in Lishi, China. In this work, a series of stress-controlled monotonic and cyclic hollow cylinder tests were conducted. In the monotonic tests, the samples were sheared under different inclinations of the major principal stress. According to the results, the saturated remolded loess clearly shows strength anisotropy and shear dilation features. In the cyclic tests, the experimental results show that the evolutions of the pore pressure and generalized shear strain are highly dependent on the principal stress rotation (PSR). The evolution of the strain can be categorized into stable and destructive types. For the stable type, the change in pore pressure increases with the number of loading cycles and then becomes stable. The change in the difference in pore pressure is approximately the same under the same vertical stress ratio. The development of pore pressure shows the hysteresis property, the PSR decreases the degree of the pore pressure hysteresis.