Size effects on the strength properties of low cement-mixed granular soils

Abstract

Cement-mixed gravelly soil (CMG) compacted at an energy level lower than the one for RCC has recently been used to construct bridge abutments for high-speed trains in Japan. A series of studies on the stress-strain properties of CMG were performed to develop the design and construction procedures of such structures (Watanabe et al. 2003; Kongsuprasert et al. 2007, Tatsuoka et al. 2008, Ezaoui et al. 2010). As laboratory stress-strain tests on large specimens (i.e., 30 cm in diameter) on in-situ material are usually very difficult to perform because of large test scale and time limitation (i.e., curing period), it is usual practice to perform tests on small young specimens of materials removing large particles. Among these issues, we discuss scale effect in terms of specimen size in this paper based on results from a series of non-standard drained triaxial compression (TC) tests using three different apparatuses on specimens with volumes different by a factor up to 50 times of low cement-mixed granular material (CMG) compacted at low and high energy levels.