Experimental quantification of 3D deformations in sensitive clay during stress-probing
Journal article, 2022

Unique four-dimensional (4D) deformation data are collected during drained triaxial tests on intact specimens of a natural sensitive clay. This requires the development of a miniature triaxial cell for advanced stress path testing, specifically designed for X-ray computed tomography. Salient features include the omission of a membrane, and a mounting procedure that minimises disturbance by the experimenter. Three distinct drained stress ratios are studied for pseudo-isotropic, K-0, and highly deviatoric loading paths. The results indicate that the K-0 path shows the most uniform deformation mechanism, where the measured ratio of deviatoric and volumetric strain increments reach the stress ratio applied at boundary value level for large magnitudes of total strain. The pseudo-isotropic test also reaches a strain ratio close to eta at large total strain levels; however, the deformation field is less uniform. Furthermore, the highly deviatoric stress path shows the most heterogeneous deformation fields commensurate with the applied stress ratio, although the ratio of deviatoric and volumetric strain increments falls above the eta applied. The mean value of the three-dimensional spatial fields of strain corresponds well with the changes observed at boundary level, supporting prior research on drained stress-probing on clays for which there are no 4D deformation data available.

triaxial tests

micro-CT tomography

clays

strain

stress path testing

Author

Georgios Birmpilis

Geoteknik

Edward Ando

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL)

Grenoble Alpes University

Olga Stamati

Grenoble Alpes University

Stephen A. Hall

Lund University

Lund Institute of Advanced Neutron and X-ray Science (LINXS)

Eleni Gerolymatou

Clausthal University of Technology

Jelke Dijkstra

Chalmers, Architecture and Civil Engineering, Geology and Geotechnics

Geotechnique

0016-8505 (ISSN) 17517656 (eISSN)

Vol. 73 8 655-666

Att fånga långsamt ändrande dynamisk respons av lösa jordar

Formas (2016-01070), 2017-01-01 -- 2020-12-31.

Subject Categories

Applied Mechanics

Geotechnical Engineering

Other Materials Engineering

DOI

10.1680/jgeot.21.00114

More information

Latest update

9/7/2023 1