Effect of Inherent Anisotropy on the Triaxial Compression Behavior of Coral Sand
Kaifeng Zeng, Huabei Liu
Abstract
A series of triaxial tests were carried out on two types of coral sand to study the inherent anisotropy behavior under triaxial stress conditions. Notably, monotonic drained and undrained tests and cyclic drained tests were conducted. At the same time, the effect of inherent anisotropy on particle breakage and the relationship between the relative breakage and the input energy were investigated. The test results show that the coral sand demonstrates very evident anisotropic behavior under triaxial stress conditions. In the monotonic tests, the effective peak friction angle and compressibility of coral sand decrease with the depositional angle, and the anisotropic behavior is more significant at low confining pressures. The axial and volumetric strains of the low-depositional-angle specimens increase faster with the number of cycles in the cyclic drained tests. In addition, the relative breakage increases with the confining pressure but decreases with the depositional angle. A unique relationship exists between the relative breakage and the input energy for the specimens with the same depositional angle, but the relative breakage decreases with the depositional angle at the same input energy.