Research on Rheological Properties of Rockfill Material under Stress Unloading

Abstract

A number of super high earth-rock dams will be built in China in the near future. Deformation control is the key issue in the safety construction and operation of these major water conservancy projects.In this paper, the effect of stress loading process on the subsequent rheological development is studied, and a new accumulation rule of rockfill rheology is proposed, that is, the current rheological variable of rockfill unit at a certain time is equal to the hardening rheological variable that can cause additional hardening of rockfill at that time.Then, the influence of stress unloading process on the subsequent rheological development law is further studied. It is found that after stress unloading, there are positive rheological zone, no rheological zone and reverse rheological zone in the rheological behavior of rockfill material. The rheological accumulation rule proposed in this paper is also applicable to the case of stress unloading.