Mechanical properties of artificially structured soil and Binary-medium-based constitutive model under undrained conditions

by Yizhi Li, Enlong Liu, Miao He

To investigate the mechanical properties and constitutive models of structured soil under undrained conditions, triaxial compression tests on initially anisotropic structured soil, isotropic structured soil, and remolded soil were conducted under consolidation undrained conditions at confining pressures of 25, 50, 100, and 200 kPa, respectively. The results demonstrate that the samples of structured soils with strong structural characteristics have an obvious yield strength when the consolidation stress is low. At this time, the pore water pressure in structured soils increases at the beginning of loading. As the axial strain increasing, it turns to reduce. When failure, the samples have obvious shear band. With the consolidation stress increases, the mechanical properties and deformation mechanism of structured soils are near to the remolded soil. Combining the Binary-medium theory with the analysis and discussion of the mechanical properties and deformation mechanisms of structured soil, the rationality of the corresponding Binary-medium model was verified, which shows that the constitutive model can reflect the characteristics of dilatancy and strain softening, volumetric contraction and strain hardening under the conditions of low and high confining pressure respectively. At the same time, the constitutive model can also reflect the differences in the stress-strain characteristics of the two structural soils caused by the structural differences. In general, the results agree with the experiment relative well.