• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.361-372
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• 2016

The soil-concrete interface shear strength, although has been extensively studied, is still difficult to predict as a result of the dependence on many factors such as normal stresses, surface roughness, particle sizes, moisture contents, dilation angles of soils, etc. In this study, a well-known rigorous statistical learning approach, namely the least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) realized in a ubiquitous spreadsheet platform is firstly used in estimating the soil-structure interface shear strength. Instead of studying the complicated mechanism, LS-SVM enables to explore the possible link between the fundamental factors and the interface shear strengths, via a sophisticated statistic approach. As a preliminary investigation, the authors study the expansive soils that are found extensively in most countries. To reduce the complexity, three major influential factors, e.g., initial moisture contents, initial dry densities and normal stresses of soils are taken into account in developing the LS-SVM models for the soil-concrete interface shear strengths. The predicted results by LS-SVM show reasonably good agreement with experimental data from direct shear tests.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.29-41
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• 2020

It is extremely important to obtain rock strength parameters for geological engineering. In this paper, the evolution of sandstone cohesion and internal friction angle with plastic shear strain was obtained by simulating the cyclic loading and unloading tests under different confining pressures using Particle Flow Code software. By which and combined with the micro-crack propagation process, the mesoscopic mechanism of parameter evolution was studied. The results show that with the increase of plastic shear strain, the sandstone cohesion decreases first and then tends to be stable, while the internal friction angle increases first, then decreases, and finally maintains unchanged. The evolution of sandstone shear strength parameters is closely related to the whole process of crack formation, propagation and coalescence. When the internal micro-cracks are less and distributed randomly and dispersedly, and the rock shear strength parameters (cohesion, internal friction angle) are considered to have not been fully mobilized. As the directional development of the internal micro-fractures as well as the gradual formation of macroscopic shear plane, the rock cohesion reduces continuously and the internal friction angle is in the rise stage. As the formation of the macroscopic shear plane, both the rock cohesion and internal friction angle continuously decrease to a certain residual level.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.743-755
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• 2015

It is well known that the quality of sample significantly determines the accuracy of soil parameters for laboratory testing. Although sampling disturbance has been studied over the last few decades, the theoretical investigation of soil disturbance due to sampling penetration has been rarely reported. In this paper, an analytical solution for estimating the soil disturbance due to sampling penetration was presented using cavity expansion method. Analytical results in several cases reveal that the soil at different location along the sample centerline experiences distinct phases of strain during the process of sampling penetration. The magnitude of induced strain is dependent on the position of the soil element within the sampler and the sampler geometry expressed as diameter-thickness ratio D/t and length-diameter ratio L/D. Effects of sampler features on soil disturbance were also studied. It is found that the induced maximum strain decreases exponentially with increasing diameter-thickness ratio, indicating that the sampling disturbance will reduce with increasing diameter or decreasing wall thickness of sampler. It is also found that a large length-diameter ratio does not necessarily reduce the disturbance. An optimal length-diameter ratio is suggested for the further design of improved sampler in this study.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.133-140
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• 2019

Strain-rate and temperature have significant effects on the one-dimensional (1D) compression behavior of soils. This paper focuses on the bonding degradation effect of soil structure on the time and temperature dependent behavior of soft structured clay. The strain-rate and temperature dependency of preconsolidation pressure are investigated in double logarithm plane and a thermal viscoplastic model considering the combined effect of strain-rate and temperature is developed to describe the mechanical behavior of unstructured clay. By incorporating the bonding degradation, the model is extended that can be suitable for structured clay. The extended model is used to simulate CRS (Constant Rate of Strain) tests conducted on structural Berthierville clay with different strain-rates and temperatures. The comparisons between predicted and experimental results show that the extended model can reasonably describe the effect of bonding degradation on the stain-rate and temperature dependent behavior of soft structural clay under 1D condition. Although the model is proposed for 1D analysis, it can be a good base for developing a more general 3D model.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.71-83
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• 2019

This investigation presented conventional triaxial and creep-permeability tests on sandstones considering thermally-induced damage (TID). The TID had no visible effects on rock surface color, effective porosity and permeability below $300^{\circ}C$ TID level. The permeability enlarged approximately two orders of magnitude as TID increased to $1000^{\circ}C$ level. TID of $700^{\circ}C$ level was a threshold where the influence of TID on the normalized mass and volume of the specimen can be divided into two linear phases. Moreover, no prominent variations in the deformation moduli and peak strength and strain appeared as TID< $500^{\circ}C$ level. It is interesting that the peak strength increased by 24.3% at $700^{\circ}C$ level but decreased by 11.5% at $1000^{\circ}C$ level. The time-related deformation and steady-state creep rate had positive correlations with creep loading and the TID level, whereas the instantaneous modulus showed the opposite. The strain rates under creep failure stresses raised 1-4 orders of magnitude than those at low-stress levels. The permeability was not only dependent on the TID level but also dependent on creep deformation. The TID resulted in large deformation and complexity of failure pattern for the sandstone.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.157-166
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• 2021

This paper aims at the temperature and slenderness ratio effects on physical and mechanical properties of Beishan granite. A series of uniaxial compression tests with various slenderness ratios and temperatures were carried out, and the acoustic emission signal was also collected. As the temperature increases, the fracture aperture of intercrystalline cracks gradually increases, and obvious transcrystalline cracks occurs when T > 600℃. The failure patterns change from tensile failure mode to ductile failure mode with the increasing temperature. The elastic modulus decreases with the temperature and increases with slenderness ratio, then tends to be a constant value when T = 1000℃. However, the peak strain has the opposite evolution as the elastic modulus under the effects of temperature and slenderness ratio. The uniaxial compression strength (UCS) changes a little for the low-temperature specimens of T < 400℃, but a significant decrease happens when T = 400℃ and 800℃ due to phase transitions of mineral. The evolution denotes that the critical brittle-ductile transition temperature increases with slenderness ratio, and the critical slenderness ratio corresponding to the characteristic mechanical behavior tends to be smaller with the increasing temperature. Additionally, the AE quantity also increases with temperature in an exponential function.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.85-96
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• 2023

Microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) is extensively discussed as a promising topic for ground stabilization. The practical effect of stabilizing the expansive soil is presented in this paper with a logical process from the bacterial activity to the treatment technology. Temperature, pH, shaking frequency, and inoculation amount are discussed to evaluate the bacterial activity. The physic-mechanic properties are also evaluated to discuss the effect of the MICP process on expansive soil. Results indicate that the MICP method achieves the mitigation of expansion. The treated soil has a low proportion of fine particles (< 5 ㎛), the plasticity index significantly decreases, and strength values improve much. MICP process has a significant cementation effect on the soil matrix. Moreover, the infiltration model test presents the coating effect on the topsoil. According to the relation between the CaCO₃ content and the treatment effect, the topsoil has better treatment than the deeper soil.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.439-451
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• 2023

The construction of shield tunnelling in urban sites is facing serious risks from complex and changeable underground conditions. Construction problems in the sand-clay mixed ground have been more reported in recent decades for its poor control of soil loss in tunnel face, ground settlement and supporting pressure. Since the limitations of observation methods, the conventional physical modelling experiments normally simplify the tunnelling to a plane strain situation whose results are not reliable in mixed ground cases which exhibit more complicated responses. We propose a new method for the study of the mixed ground tunnel through which mixed lays are simulated with transparent soil surrogates exhibiting different mechanical properties. An experimental framework for the transparent soil modelling of the mixed ground tunnel was established incorporated with the self-developed digital image correlation system (PhotoInfor). To understand better the response of face stability, ground deformation, settlement and supporting phenomenon to tunnelling excavation in the sand-clay mixed ground, a series of case studies were carried out comparing the results from cases subjected to different buried depths and mixed phenomenon. The results indicate that the deformation mode, settlement and supporting phenomenon vary with the mixed phenomenon and buried depth. Moreover, a stratigraphic effect exists that the ground movement around mixed face reveals a notable difference.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.411-426
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• 2023

Soft clay is widely distributed in the southeast coastal areas of China. Many large underground structures, such as subway stations and underground pipe corridors, are shallow buried in the soft clay foundation, so the dynamic characteristics of the soft clay must be considered to the seismic design of underground structures. In this paper, the dynamic characteristics of saturated soft clay in Shanghai under the bidirectional excitation for earthquake loading are studied by dynamic triaxial tests, comparing the backbone curve and hysteretic curve of the saturated soft clay under different confining pressures with those under different vibration frequencies. Considering the coupling effects of the confining pressure and the vibration frequency, a fitting model of the maximum dynamic shear modulus was proposed by the multiple linear regression method. The M-D model was used to fit the variations of the dynamic shear modulus ratio with the shear strain. Based on the Chen model and the Park model, the effects of the consolidation confining pressure and the vibration frequency on the damping ratio were studied. The results can provide a reference to the earthquake prevention and disaster reduction in soft clay area.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2020

The spatial variability of geotechnical properties can lead to the uncertainty of settlement for frozen soil foundation around the oil pipeline, and it can affect the stability of permafrost foundation. In this paper, the elastic modulus, cohesion, angle of internal friction and poisson ratio are taken as four independent random fields. A stochastic analysis model for the uncertain settlement characteristic of frozen soil foundation around an oil pipeline is presented. The accuracy of the stochastic analysis model is verified by measured data. Considering the different combinations for the coefficient of variation and scale of fluctuation, the influences of spatial variability of geotechnical properties on uncertain settlement are estimated. The results show that the stochastic effects between elastic modulus, cohesion, angle of internal friction and poisson ratio are obviously different. The deformation parameters have a greater influence on stochastic settlement than the strength parameters. The overall variability of settlement reduces with the increase of horizontal scale of fluctuation and vertical scale of fluctuation. These results can improve our understanding of the influences of spatial variability of geotechnical properties on uncertain settlement and provide a theoretical basis for the reliability analysis of pipeline engineering in permafrost regions.