Stiffness and shear strength characteristics of unsaturated glass-beads: experimental observations

Sogol Sarlati, Emad Maleksaeedi, Mathieu Nuth, Mohamed Chekired

In the proceedings of: GeoEdmonton 2018: 71st Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 13th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Posters - Geotechnical

ABSTRACT: Despite the significant growth in understanding the behavior of unsaturated materials, the behavior of wet granular materials or industrial bulk solids like unsaturated soils and glass-beads present many engineering challenges due to matric suction. From numerical modelling perspective, both finite element and discrete element methods have been used to assess the shear strength characteristics of unsaturated materials. However, such efforts must be complemented and validated with experimental studies. In this article, the unsaturated stiffness and shear characteristics of uniformly-sized glass-beads were studied using the conventional direct shear tests at different water contents. The outcome of study offers an insight in optimization of the numerical model parameters to best fit the laboratory test data. Studies suggest that the presence of unsaturated pores and weak suction stress can affect the stiffness and shear strength characteristics such as, finite shear modulus, internal friction, dilation angle which should be accounted in both numerical and theoretical constitutive modeling.

RÉSUMÉ: recherche, le comportement des matériaux granulaires humides ou des granulats industriels comme les sols non-saturés et les billes de verre présente de nombreux que, la caractérisation de la résistance au cisaillement des matériaux non-saturés est basée sur la méthode des éléments finis et discrets. Dans cet article sont étudiées la rigidité non saturée et les propriétés de cisaillement de billes en verre de taille uniforme par le biais et de contraintes de succion interne . Cette dépendance à la succion doit être incluse dans les modèles théoriques et numériques.

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Cite this article:
Sogol Sarlati; Emad Maleksaeedi; Mathieu Nuth; Mohamed Chekired (2018) Stiffness and shear strength characteristics of unsaturated glass-beads: experimental observations in GEO2018. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{geo2018Paper218,author = Sogol Sarlati; Emad Maleksaeedi; Mathieu Nuth; Mohamed Chekired,title = Stiffness and shear strength characteristics of unsaturated glass-beads: experimental observations,year = 2018}