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Evolution of particle breakage and volumetric deformation of binary granular soils under impact load

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Abstract

Binary granular soils, mixtures of carbonate sands and nonplastic fines, are widely used for constructions of foundation, airport and embankment in island and coast. Impact load (e.g., sea wave, aircraft landing, pile driving and dynamic compaction during foundation, et al.) is frequently exerted to the mixtures. It is therefore of extreme importance to investigate the evolutions of particle size distribution, particle breakage and volumetric deformation of the mixtures under impact load due to that the grains of carbonate sands are easily to be crushed, which may significant affect its mechanical behavior. Three mixtures (i.e., 100% carbonate plus 0% fines (by dry weight), 90% carbonate plus 10% fines and 80% carbonate plus 20% fines) were prepared to analyze the effect of fines content on particle breakage and volumetric deformation under impact load. It was observed that a unique fractal grading could be obtained for all the mixtures when the blow number was large enough (\(N>20,000\)). The void ratio of the mixtures converged to be a constant ultimate value as the mixture reached the fractal state. The volumetric strain and relative particle breakage with respect to the blow number could be described by hyperbolic functions, indicating that the volumetric strain and relative particle breakage progressively increased to ultimate values with increasing the blow number.

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Abbreviations

t :

Test time

N :

Blow number

\(I_D \) :

Relative density

\(f_c \) :

Fines content (%)

\(e_0 \) :

Initial void ratio

h :

Specimen height (mm)

\(h_0 \) :

Initial specimen height (mm)

F :

Percentage finer (%)

d :

Grain diameter (mm)

\(d_{\mathrm{M}} \) :

Maximum grain diameter (mm)

\(\alpha \) :

Fractal dimensions

\(\varepsilon _v \) :

Volumetric strain (%)

\(\varepsilon _u \) and \(N_{\varepsilon 0} \) :

Two fitting parameters

\(e_0 \) :

Initial void ratio

e :

Current void ratio

\(B_{\mathrm{p}} \) and \(B_{\mathrm{t}} \) :

Breakage potential and total breakage, respectively

\(B_{\mathrm{r}} \) :

Relative breakage index (%)

\(B_u \) and \(N_{b0} \) :

Fitting parameter

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the 111 Project (Grant No. B13024), the National Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51509024, 51678094), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 106112015CDJXY200008) and the Project funded by China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016M590864).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster Dynamics and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China

    Yang Xiao

  2. Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Yang Xiao

  3. School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Yang Xiao, Hanlong Liu, Leihang Long & Jia Xiang

  4. Research Academic, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, No. 21 Lower Kent Ridge Road, 119077, Singapore, Singapore

    Qingsheng Chen

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  1. Yang Xiao
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Correspondence to Yang Xiao.

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The Authors are most thankful for editor’s and two reviewers’ valuable comments for improving this paper.

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Xiao, Y., Liu, H., Chen, Q. et al. Evolution of particle breakage and volumetric deformation of binary granular soils under impact load. Granular Matter 19, 71 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10035-017-0756-z

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