Investigation on mechanical properties of artificially structured soils under different stress paths

Abstract

Abstract Natural soils are structured in deposit process. This is the biggest difference between the remolded soils and natural soils. As one of the stress-dependent materials, different kinds of stress-path have great influences on the mechanical properties of structured soils. Based on the triaxial tests on different kinds of stress path, the mechanical properties of structured soils and remolded soils are discussed in the paper. The main conclusions are as follows: under conventional triaxial compression tests, the sample of structured soils shows strain softening and volume dilation when the confining pressure is lower (25kPa); when the confining pressure becomes large (100 kPa and 200 kPa), the sample shows strain hardening and volume contraction; while, the remolded soils behave stress hardening and volume strain contraction under all kinds of confining pressures. Under triaxial extension tests, the sample of structured soils shows strain softening and volume dilation in the loading process; the remolded soils have strain hardening and volume contraction. Under constant mean stress loading path, the sample of structured soils shows plastic flow and volume strain contraction, while the remolded soils perform strain hardening and volume contraction.