Particle breakage of uniformly graded carbonate sands in dry/wet condition subjected to compression/shear tests

Abstract

The behaviour of a granular material is primarily affected by its particle size distribution (PSD), which is not necessarily a soil constant as assumed in traditional soil mechanics. The PSD may change over time due to mechanical as well as environmental actions. In this study, a series of ring shear tests and one-dimensional compression tests were completed on carbonate sand, in both dry and saturated conditions. Samples were prepared with different initial uniform gradings, to investigate: (1) the influence of the saturation state and initial grading on mechanical and deformational behaviour of carbonate sands and (2) the evolution of the PSD as a result of breakage. The ring shear tests show that the residual friction angle remains almost constant, but dilatancy reduces with increasing saturation degree. In the one-dimensional compression test, the yield stress decreases with increasing saturation degree, but the compressibility (as defined by Cc) remains almost constant, irrespective of the saturation state. Moreover, saturated samples suffer more breakage than dry samples during ring shear tests, while there is no obvious effect of saturation state on particle breakage in one-dimensional compression. A recently proposed PSD model with only two parameters (λp and κp) is employed to model the evolution of PSD, as it can more broadly capture the whole PSD throughout the breakage process than existing breakage indices. Test results demonstrate that parameter λp is linearly related to Einav’s breakage index $$ B_{\text{r}}^{*} $$ and is dependent on initial grading, but independent of test mode. Parameter κp is in power relationship with $$ B_{\text{r}}^{*} $$ and is independent of initial grading or test mode. The evolution of parameters λp and κp is related to the input work for both ring shear and compression tests, with λp being hyperbolically related to input work and κp in power relationship with input work. Using such an evolution law provides an alternative approach to capture the effects of particle breakage in constitutive models.