Studies on Stress-Strain Features of Structured Granite Residual Soil

Abstract

Granite is widely spread out in South China. Under severe weathering actions in the subtropical hot climate, the product (granite residual soil) has very unique properties including low density with low compressibility, high in-situ strength yet can cause easy slope sliding during heavy rain. Granite residual soil represents typical problem soils in geotechnical engineering that include expensive soil, loess, etc.. However, compared to other problem soils, granite residual soil has not been studied extensively with few publications on its material properties and its inherent failure mechanisms. Thus, study of granite residual soil remains an important topic in geotechnical field. In this paper, undisturbed granite residual soils samples were collect from an actual building project site in Shenzhen. Triaxial tests were conducted on both undisturbed and remolded soil samples. From the test results, it was found that the initial structure of granite residual soil has significant influence on its behavior. The stress-strain relationships and suitable constitutive models are analyzed with comparisons between undisturbed soils and remolded soils.