Geomechanics and Engineering

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Mechanical properties and failure mechanism of gravelly soils in large scale direct shear test using DEM

  • Tu, Yiliang (State Key Laboratory of Mountain Bridge and Tunnel Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University) ;
  • Wang, Xingchi (School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University) ;
  • Lan, Yuzhou (School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University) ;
  • Wang, Junbao (Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Space Engineering, Xian University of Architecture and Technology) ;
  • Liao, Qian (State Key Laboratory of Mountain Bridge and Tunnel Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University)
  • Received : 2021.07.31
  • Accepted : 2022.05.13
  • Published : 2022.07.10
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Abstract

Gravelly soil is a kind of special geotechnical material, which is widely used in the subgrade engineering of railway, highway and airport. Its mechanical properties are very complex, and will greatly influence the stability of subgrade engineering. To investigate the mechanical properties and failure mechanism of gravelly soils, this paper introduced and verified a new discrete element method (DEM) of gravelly soils in large scale direct shear test, which considers the actual shape and broken characteristics of gravels. Then, the stress and strain characteristics, particle interaction, particle contact force, crack development and energy conversion in gravelly soils during the shear process were analyzed using this method. Moreover, the effects of gravel content (GC) on the mechanical properties and failure characteristics were discussed. The results reveal that as GC increases, the shear stress becomes more fluctuating, the peak shear stress increases, the volumetric strain tends to dilate, the average particle contact force increases, the cumulative number of cracks increases, and the shear failure plane becomes coarser. Higher GC will change the friction angle with a trend of "stability", "increase", and "stability". Differently, it affects the cohesion with a law of "increase", "stability" and "increase".

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The research described in this paper was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51808083), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2020M673110), the Basic Research and Frontier Exploration Project of Chongqing of China (No. cstc2018jcyjAX0491), the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (No. KJQN201800713), the Opening Foundation of State Key Laboratory of Mountain Bridge and Tunnel Engineering (SKLBT-19-011) and the Opening Foundation of Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Space Engineering (No. YT201904).

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