Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278

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Journal of Rock Mechanics and

Geotechnical Engineering
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Full Length Article

Effects of initial particle gradation and rock content on crushing behaviors

of weathered phyllite fills e A case of eastern Ankang section of Shiyane
Tianshui highway, China
Feifei Liu a, c, Xuesong Mao a, **, Yushuo Fan a, b, Linping Wu c, Wei Victor Liu c, *
a
School of Highway, Chang’an University, Xi’an, China
b
Shijiazhuang Transportation Survey and Design Institute, Shijiazhuang, China
c
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The objective of this paper is to investigate the effects of initial particle gradation and rock content on the
Received 12 March 2019 crushing behavior (i.e. grain size before and after crushing) of weathered phyllite fills. Compaction tests
Received in revised form were conducted on weathered phyllite fills with rock contents of 35%, 45%, 55%, 65% and 75% (by weight).
22 June 2019
First, the particle size distributions (PSDs) were observed before and after compaction, and then the
Accepted 4 July 2019
Available online 11 January 2020
particle breakage of weathered phyllite fills was analyzed by fractal dimension. Relative fractal dimen-
sion was proposed to evaluate the effects of initial rock content and initial gradation on the particle
breakage. It was found that the fractal dimension method can well characterize the crushing behaviors of
Keywords:
Weathered phyllite fills
the weathered phyllite fills. The finer the fills were, the more they were compacted. That is, after the first
Crushing behavior compaction, the relative fractal dimension of the weathered phyllite fills increased as the rock content
Compaction test increased, reaching the values of 0.013, 0.016, 0.024, 0.037 and 0.08, respectively. After the second
Fractal dimension compaction, these relative fractal dimension values, dominated by the initial particle gradation, became
Relative fractal dimension 0.059, 0.072, 0.052, 0.095 and 0.118, respectively. In conclusion, the weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock
content exhibited the least breakage and were most suitable for filling the subgrade. Findings in this
paper will provide significant guidance for the construction of weathered phyllite filling subgrade in
future projects.
Ó 2020 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
In road engineering, subgrade refers to the in situ material at
natural ground level on which a road is constructed (Speight,
2015). Subgrade is an essential part of the road. It bears the
weight of the pavement and traffic load (Speight, 2015). Accord-
ingly, the working condition of the subgrade is of great signifi-
cance. A good subgrade will improve the serviceability of the road,
while a poor one may lead to pavement damage such as cracks
and collapses, endangering safety. The subgrade fills play a key
role, i.e. when poor-quality subgrade fill is used, roads fail
* Corresponding author.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xuesongxian@aliyun.com (X. Mao), victor.liu@ualberta.ca
(W.V. Liu).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chi-
nese Academy of Sciences.
frequently (Abd Karim et al., 2014). For example, due to the poor
filling used for the subgrade of the Binjiang Road in Jiangmen City,
Guangdong Province, China, uneven settlement was produced,
inducing a great number of longitudinal cracks on the asphalt
pavement (Sun et al., 2008). Subgrade fill is usually obtained
locally based on its availability, that is, the source of subgrade fills
varies depending on locations and geological conditions where the
road is constructed. For example, after a tunnel excavation in Baihe
County, Ankang City in Shaanxi Province, China, weathered phyl-
lite waste slag became widely available. This phyllite is being used
in the project of east Ankang section of ShiyaneTianshui highway.
It is an important section of ShiyaneTianshui highway in the
“2367” highway planning network in Shaanxi Province, China. The
total length of the east Ankang section of the highway is 130 km
(Mao, 2012). Weathered phyllite is a low-grade metamorphic rock
with “leaf” structure and silky luster on a microscopically
deformed wafer (Xu et al., 2018). Along the section is a large
amount of weathered phyllite. From an industry perspective, using

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2019.07.011
1674-7755 Ó 2020 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
270 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278
this weathered phyllite as subgrade fills saves construction costs
and reduces environmental impacts.
However, more investigation is needed on using weathered
phyllite as subgrade fills because particles of weathered phyllite are
easily broken (Mao et al., 2011). Previous studies have shown that
particle breakage is strongly associated with the mechanical be-
haviors of soil particles (Bolton, 1986; Leung et al., 1996; Karube
et al., 1999; Vilhar et al., 2013). In particular, particle breakage re-
duces the ratio between volumetric dilation and peak stress, and
changes the plastic deformation mechanisms and shear failure
modes (Kwok and Bolton, 2011; Wang and Yan, 2013; Yu and
Towhata, 2016). Particle breakage has also resulted in an increase
in the mobilized basic friction angle, especially before failure (Yu
and Su, 2016). Research has shown that particle breakage plays a
significant role in many engineering failures, such as landslides and
deformation of subgrade (Nakamura et al., 2014).
Over the years, a great deal of research has examined the
crushing behavior of granular soils (Ueng et al., 1988; AASHTO
M145, 1991; Lade et al., 1996). Generally, direct shear tests, uniax-
ial compression tests, and triaxial tests are the common laboratory
approaches used to investigate particle crushing behavior (Nakata
et al., 1999; Tarantino and Hyde, 2005; Leleu and Valdes, 2007;
Xiao et al., 2014; Yu, 2017). Some researchers (e.g. Zhao et al.,
2015) adopted uniaxial compression tests with X-ray micro-
tomography tests to investigate the particle crushing behavior,
which has brought the study of particle breakage to a microscopic
scale.
In recent years, researchers have proposed new ways to
examine the particle crushing behaviors (i.e. grain sizes before and
after crushing). Two of the most prominent methods are the
discrete element method (Bolton et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2017; Manso
et al., 2018) and the fractal dimension method (Tyler and
Wheatcraft, 1992). In particular, the fractal dimension method can
directly reflect the soil particle size and has become an excellent
tool to evaluate soil particle breakage. Despite many studies on
normal granular soils (Luzzani and Coop, 2002; Wang et al., 2013,
2017a; Ghafghazi et al., 2014; Lee et al., 2018; Zhong et al., 2018),
very little research has focused on the particle crushing behavior of
weathered phyllite. Weathered phyllite has a flaky structure, and it
presents layered microscopic morphologies (Garzón et al., 2010;
Mao et al., 2016). This structure makes it different from other
granular soils. Hence, the crushing behavior of weathered phyllite
may be very different from that of normal granular soils. Weath-
ered phyllite fills vary in particle gradations and rock contents.
Herein, the “rock” is distinguished from the soil only in terms of the
particle size, and it is defined as a block coarser than the soil matrix.
This is the usual way to define soil and rock in the soil-rock mixture
(e.g. subgrade fills) in transport engineering (Cen et al., 2017; Gao
et al., 2018). In this way, “rock content” in this paper refers to a
certain percentage (by weight) of coarser blocks (or coarse-grain
content with grain size > 5 mm) in the subgrade fills. Previous
studies indicate that subgrade fills with a certain percentage of rock
content (or coarse-grain content) are extremely inhomogeneous,
and the rock content has greatly impact on the physical and me-
chanical properties of the fills (Vallejo and Mawby, 2000; Coli et al.,
2011; Xu et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2017b). Wang et al. (2009) studied
the effect of coarse-grain (grain size > 5 mm) contents on the
crushing behavior of fills, concluding that the particle breakage first
increases and then decreases with the increment of the coarse-
grain content. Wang et al. (2012) pointed out that particle
breakage is strongly associated with the coarse-grain contents by
large-scale direct shear experiments. Likewise, the rock content
may influence the crushing behaviors of fills. Altuhafi et al. (2011)
and Huang et al. (2013) concluded that, in the well-graded sam-
ples, particle breakage is relatively harder than that in the
uniformly-graded samples. Muir Wood (2006) made a similar
conclusion indicating that when the particle size range is wider in a
single sample, there is a lower probability of breakage. Hence, the
rock contents and particle gradations are closely related to the
crushing behaviors of fills, and further affect the physical and me-
chanical properties of fills (Hu et al., 2018). To this end, it is of great
significance to investigate the crushing behavior of weathered
phyllite fills e the effects of particle gradation and rock content on
the changes of grain size (before and after crushing) e to examine
the feasibility of using weathered phyllite as a potential subgrade
fill.
The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of rock
content and initial particle gradation on the crushing behaviors of
weathered phyllite fills from the eastern Ankang section of the
ShiyaneTianshui highway, China. This study has highlighted the
use of the fractal dimension method to evaluate the crushing
behavior. Also, it has provided the optimum particle composition of
weathered phyllite fills, at which particles are less likely to be
crushed. The results obtained in this study can be further used in
other pavement projects that are rich in weathered phyllite.
2. Experimental details
2.1. Physical characteristics of weathered phyllite fill
The weathered phyllite fills in this study were chosen randomly
from the eastern Ankang section of the ShiyaneTianshui highway
in China (see Fig. 1). According to the International Society for Rock
Mechanics and Rock Engineering (ISRM) classification (Brown,
1981), this weathered phyllite is considered as a highly weath-
ered rock (W4).
An X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) test was carried out to obtain
the mineralogy of the weathered phyllite fills. As per Garzón et al.
(2010), a sample was crushed and passed through a 63 mm sieve.
The powdered sample was oven-dried at 110
C for 24 h. Then,
the powered sample was sprinkled on a fiber lens
(25 mm  25 mm  1 mm) for the XRD test. The results are shown
in Fig. 2. The quantitative results of the XRD analysis (Fig. 3) indi-
cate that the main mineralogy compositions are quartz (21.6%),
albite (21.7%), and muscovite (24.3%). The results obtained by
Garzón et al. (2010) and Kemp et al. (2010) also showed that the
main mineralogy composition of phyllite contained quartz and
muscovite, although in different quantities.
Micrographs of weathered phyllite sample (see Fig. 4) were
obtained in the early work (Mao et al., 2016). It can be seen from
Fig. 4 that the weathered phyllite presents layered morphologies
due to the presence of muscovite. Besides, the grain characteristic
of quartz can be also revealed in Fig. 4.
Physical properties of weathered phyllite fills such as moisture
content, bulk density, and Atterberg limits were measured ac-
cording to ASTM D2216-10 (2010), ASTM D7263-09(2018)e2 (2018)
and ASTM D4318-17e1 (2017), respectively. The results are shown
in Table 1.
2.2. Preparation of samples
Different rock contents of weathered phyllite fills were chosen
for this study. According to Medley and Lindquist (1995), the soil-
rock threshold (dthr) is 0.05 times the engineering dimensions.
Herein, the engineering dimensions refer to as a characteristic
dimension of an engineering structure, e.g. the diameter of a tun-
nel, the width of a foundation or the dimension of a laboratory
sample. In this paper, the diameter of the compaction cylinder is
152.4 mm. Therefore, the calculated value of the soil-rock threshold
(dthr) is 7.64 mm. Since a particle with the diameter of 7.64 mm will
 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278 271

Fig. 1. Location of weathered phyllite fills being studied.

pass a 9.5 mm sieve and be retained on a 4.75 mm sieve, weathered
phyllite particles with a diameter larger than 4.75 mm were defined
as “rock” in this paper.
Since the rock content of the weathered phyllite fills on-site
ranged from 32% to 77% (by weight), five groups of weathered
phyllite fills were prepared with 35%, 45%, 55%, 65% and 75% rock
contents. According to ASTM D1557-12e1 (2012), the tested soils
(materials) should have 30% or less by mass of their particles
retained on the 0.75 inch (19 mm) sieve. It was necessary to
equivalently replace the oversized particles of the fill so that the
maximum particle size was 37.5 mm after replacement.
Particle size distribution (PSD) analyses of the weathered phyllite
fills were carried out according to ASTM C136/C136M-14 (2014). The
PSDs for the five groups of weathered phyllite fills are shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 2. XRD powder diagram of the weathered phyllite sample.

272 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278

Fig. 3. Summary of mineralogy composition of the weathered phyllite sample using

XRD.

Fig. 5. Particle size distributions for weathered phyllite fills.

The maximum dry bulk density and optimum moisture content

of the five groups of weathered phyllite fills were obtained ac-
cording to the compaction standard ASTM D1557-12e1 (2012), as
shown in Table 3.
According to ASTM D1557-12e1 (2012), the weathered phyllite
fills (with 35%, 45%, 55%, 65% and 75% rock contents) were first
oven-dried at 105
C. Then, the fills were mixed with distilled water
to achieve their optimum moisture contents of 8.72%, 8.04%, 7.31%,
6.74% and 6.38%, respectively (see Table 3) until the optimum
compaction effect was obtained. The prepared fills were then
placed in sealed containers for 24 h to ensure that the moisture
content was uniformly distributed.

2.3. Testing apparatus and procedure

The ASTM (American Society of Testing Materials) laboratory

Fig. 4. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrograph of a phyllite sample (Mao
et al., 2016).
As illustrated in Fig. 5, the gradation curve of weathered phyllite
fills with 75% rock content is at the bottom, while that of weathered
phyllite fills with 35% rock content is at the top. Fig. 5 shows that
the larger the rock content, the coarser the particle in the weath-
ered phyllite fills. In addition, the coefficients of uniformity (CU) of
the five groups are all larger than 10, while the coefficients of
curvature (CC) range from 1 to 2 (see Table 2), indicating that the
five groups of fills are well-graded. Furthermore, it should be noted
that the coefficient of uniformity (CU) of weathered phyllite fills
with 55% rock content is the largest in the five groups, suggesting
that the weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock content have a wider
particle distribution than the other four groups.
compaction test was conducted in this study to explore the
crushing behavior of weathered phyllite fills during the subgrade
compaction process. The main apparatus used was the multifunc-
tional electric hammer (see Fig. 6), which consisted of a 44.48-N
rammer, a controller, and a cylindrical mold with an internal
diameter of 152.4 mm and a height of 177 mm. The controller was
used to set the number of blows so that the hammer would work
according to the predefined blows.
The prepared weathered phyllite fills were placed in five layers
in the mold according to the requirements of the ASTM compaction
test (ASTM D1557-12e1, 2012). Each layer was compacted by 25
blows of the 10-lbf (44.48-N) rammer dropped from a distance of
18 inch (457.2 mm), i.e. the weathered phyllite fills were each
subjected to a total compaction effort of about 56,000 ft-lbf/ft3
(2700 kN m/m3). After the ASTM compaction test, the weathered
Table 2
Coefficients of uniformity and curvature of weathered phyllite fills.

Table 1 Rock content (%) d60 (mm) d30 (mm) d10 (mm) CU CC
Physical properties of weathered phyllite sample. 35 4.23 1.15 0.24 17.55 1.3
45 6.4 1.68 0.3 21.33 1.47
Moisture content Bulk density Liquid limit Plastic limit Plasticity index
55 8.78 2.39 0.4 21.94 1.63
(%) (g/cm3) (%) (%) (%)
65 12.72 3.76 0.7 18.08 1.58
4e6.5 2.69e2.81 19.8 16 3.8 75 15.86 5.74 1.13 14.09 1.84
 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278 273

Table 3
Maximum dry bulk density and optimum moisture content for the weathered
phyllite fills.

Rock Maximum dry Optimum moisture

content (%) bulk density (g/cm3) content (%)

35 2.11 8.72
45 2.21 8.04
55 2.36 7.31
65 2.23 6.74
75 2.22 6.38

Fig. 7. Particle size distributions for the weathered phyllite fills before and after
compaction.

mass of soil particles (g), and Mt ¼ M1(di)þM2(di). Taking the log-

arithm on both sides of Eq. (1), we have

log10 ½M1 ðdi Þ = Mt  ¼ ð3  DÞlog10 ðdi = dmax Þ (2)

As shown in Eq. (2), according to the fractal dimension theory
(Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1992), if log10 ½M1 ðdi Þ =Mt  is linearly corre-
lated with log10 ðdi =dmax Þthen the soil possesses fractal
characteristics.

3. Results and discussion

Fig. 6. Testing apparatus for ASTM compaction test (unit: mm). 3.1. Grain sizes before and after compaction

Particle size distributions for the weathered phyllite fills before

phyllite fills were placed in an oven at 110
C for at least 24 h, and
then they were screened to determine their PSD. Later, the samples
were re-compacted for a second time, according to ASTM C136/
C136M-14 (2014), using the same compaction process and
equipment.
2.4. Fractal dimension method
The fractal dimension method (Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1992) was
used to characterize the crushing amount (the increase in fine
particles) in this study. According to the fractal model, the fractal
dimension can reflect the particle sizes of the fills. That is, the
higher the content of the coarse grain, the smaller the fractal
dimension (Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1992; Jia et al., 2009). Based on
this theory, the increase in fine particles can be determined by
calculating the difference between the fractal dimensions before
and after the compaction test. In this way, the amount of crushed
weathered phyllite fills can be obtained. In this paper, the fractal
dimension of the soil was calculated by
M1 ðdi Þ=Mt ¼ 1  M2 ðdi Þ=Mt ¼ ðdi =dmax Þ3D
where D is the fractal dimension; di is the sieve size (mm); dmax is
the maximum grain size of the soil particles (mm), M1(di) is the
mass of particles (g) with a grain size smaller than di; M2(di) is the
mass of particles (g) with a grain size larger than di; Mt is the total
and after compaction are shown in Fig. 7. The gradation curves of
the weathered phyllite fills after compaction were above those
before compaction, indicating that compaction had broken the
particles. In addition, the gradation curves of the fills after the
second compaction tests were above those after the first tests,
indicating that the fills had been further broken down during the
second compaction as compared with the first compaction. In other
words, the phyllite fills became finer after each test.
Regarding the crushing characteristics of the weathered phyllite
fills, the particle mass changes were monitored for the weathered
phyllite fills with different rock contents (see Fig. 8). For weathered
phyllite fills with 35% rock content, the mass of particles retained
on the 16e31.5 mm, 2.36 mm and 0.6 mm sieves showed a
decreasing trend, while the mass of other particle groups increased.
For weathered phyllite fills with 45% and 55% rock contents, there
was an observable decrease in the mass of particles retained on the
16e31.5 mm and 2.36 mm sieves, with a remarkable increase in the
mass of particles retained on the 9.5e13.2 mm and 0.15e0.075 mm
sieves. For weathered phyllite fills with 65% and 75% rock contents,
the mass of the particles retained on the 19e31.5 mm and 4.75 mm
sieves was significantly reduced, while the mass of the particle
groups retained on the 9.5 mm and 2.36e0.075 mm sieves was
(1) dramatically increased. It was interesting to note that the mass of
larger particles decreased, while the mass of smaller particles
increased, indicating that the larger particles were broken into
smaller ones under compaction. This is because the smaller parti-
cles exhibit higher strength than the larger ones (Nakata et al.,
2001; McDowell, 2002).
274 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278

Fig. 8. Mass of weathered phyllite fills retained on various sieves before and after compaction: (a) 35% rock content; (b) 45% rock content; (c) 55% rock content; (d) 65% rock
content; and (e) 75% rock content.

Fig. 8 shows that the mass of small grains after compaction
varied with compaction efforts and initial rock contents. For
weathered phyllite fills with 35% rock content, the mass of the
particles retained on the 0.075 mm sieve after the first and second
compactions increased by 26.81% and 150%, respectively, when
compared with the initial state samples. For the fills with 45% rock
content, the mass of the particles retained on the 0.075 mm sieve
after the first and second compactions increased by 38.83% and
174.75%, respectively, compared with the initial state samples. For
the fills with 55% rock content, the mass of particles retained on the
0.075 mm sieve after the first and second compactions increased by
36.7% and 117.44%, respectively, when compared with the initial
state samples. For the fills with 65% rock content, the mass of
particles retained on the 0.075 mm sieve after the first and second
compactions increased by 67.29% and 285.24%, respectively,
compared with the initial state samples. While for the fills with 75%
rock content, the mass of particles retained on the 0.075 mm sieve
increased by 202.14% and 300.71%, respectively, compared with the
initial state samples. In other words, the mass of particles retained
on the 0.075 mm sieve increased with the compaction effort. The
compaction effort is the external work or the total energy input
applied to the particles. Xiao et al. (2014) showed that particle
crushing was well correlated with the external work, or the total
energy input to the soil element. Other researchers also found that
the mass of small grains increased with greater rock content,
similar to the findings of Sammis and Steacy (1995) and Zhang and
Baudet (2013). Weathered phyllite fills with different initial rock
contents present different initial PSDs. According to Sazzad and
Suzuki (2013), PSD is a key factor that affects particle crushing.
This suggested that it was not only the compaction effort but also
 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278 275

Table 4 the initial rock content of the weathered phyllite fills affected the
M1(di)/Mt vs. di/dmax. amount of crushed particle.
Rock content (%) di/dmax M1(di)/Mt

Initial state After the first After the 3.2. Fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills
compaction second
compaction According to Eq. (1), dmax of the weathered phyllite fills was
35 1 1 1 1 37.5 mm. Mt and M1(di) of the weathered phyllite fills before and
0.84 0.969 0.97 0.983 after compaction were calculated according to Eqs. (1) and (2), as
0.707 0.93 0.937 0.968
shown in Table 4 and Fig. 9. It can be observed that log10[M1(di)/Mt]
0.507 0.852 0.86 0.946
0.427 0.814 0.827 0.913 and log10(di/dmax) have a good linear correlation, and the co-
0.352 0.786 0.798 0.882 efficients of correlation are greater than 0.96.
0.253 0.763 0.779 0.841 According to Tyler and Wheatcraft (1992), if log10 ½M1 ðdi Þ =Mt  is
0.127 0.65 0.663 0.679 linearly correlated with log10(di/dmax), then the soil possesses
0.063 0.418 0.428 0.507
0.031 0.307 0.317 0.367
fractal characteristics. Based on this, the studied weathered phyllite
0.016 0.153 0.166 0.292 fills before and after compaction had fractal characteristics. The
0.008 0.118 0.135 0.227 fractal dimensions of the weathered phyllite fills are shown in
0.004 0.072 0.091 0.18 Table 5.
0.002 0 0 0
As shown in Table 5, in the initial state, the fractal dimension
45 1 1 1 1
0.84 0.96 0.967 0.973 (D0) of the weathered phyllite fills with 35% rock content was the
0.707 0.909 0.942 0.952 largest (D0 ¼ 2.52) in these five groups. In contrast, the fractal
0.507 0.81 0.87 0.895 dimension of the weathered phyllite fills with 75% rock content was
0.427 0.761 0.838 0.858 the smallest (D0 ¼ 2.33). This agrees with the theory of fractal
0.352 0.725 0.793 0.829
0.253 0.694 0.742 0.7841
dimension, i.e. the coarser the fills, the smaller the fractal dimen-
0.127 0.55 0.595 0.649 sion (Tyler and Wheatcraft, 1992). The weathered phyllite fills with
0.063 0.354 0.421 0.515 75% rock content were coarser than other groups, hence, their
0.031 0.26 0.316 0.422 fractal dimension was the smallest. After compaction, the fractal
0.016 0.13 0.182 0.296
dimensions of all the weathered phyllite fills increased. This means
0.008 0.1 0.124 0.236
0.004 0.061 0.071 0.168 that the weathered phyllite fills have been crushed into finer par-
0.002 0 0 0 ticles after compaction. This is similar to the results of Kikumoto
55 1 1 1 1 et al. (2010), who found that particle breakage increases the
0.84 0.955 0.957 0.98 number of fine particles.
0.707 0.894 0.923 0.957
0.507 0.771 0.824 0.872
The fractal dimensions of the weathered phyllite fills after the
0.427 0.71 0.788 0.828 second compaction were larger than those after the first compac-
0.352 0.666 0.708 0.777 tion, indicating that weathered phyllite fills were further broken.
0.253 0.627 0.656 0.717 This is because particle breakage increases when external work on
0.127 0.45 0.477 0.558
the particles increases (Xiao et al., 2016a, b). This finding is
0.063 0.298 0.341 0.423
0.031 0.222 0.271 0.344 consistent with the results in the analysis from the particle mass
0.016 0.116 0.162 0.224 changes of the weathered phyllite fills (Section 3.1). This suggests
0.008 0.092 0.122 0.169 that the fractal dimension can well characterize the fragmentation
0.004 0.06 0.082 0.131 characteristics of weathered phyllite fills.
0.002 0 0 0
Table 5 shows that fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills
65 1 1 1 1
0.84 0.946 0.978 0.982 after the second compaction all exceeded 2.6. For many granular
0.707 0.874 0.944 0.967 soils, such as sand and gravel, the maximum fractal dimension
0.507 0.727 0.836 0.888 during compression is around 2.5e2.6 (McDowell et al., 1996;
0.427 0.657 0.762 0.836
McDowell and Bolton, 1998). This indicates that it is easier to
0.352 0.606 0.71 0.793
0.253 0.56 0.649 0.735 break up weathered phyllite than other granular soils. Particle
0.127 0.35 0.458 0.553 shape affects the way in which the particle breaks (Sazzad and
0.063 0.229 0.309 0.412 Suzuki, 2013). With their flaky structure, weathered phyllite par-
0.031 0.169 0.244 0.347 ticles are relatively fragile and much easier to break than other
0.016 0.085 0.141 0.24
granular soils (e.g. sand, silt and gravel).
0.008 0.065 0.101 0.188
0.004 0.039 0.065 0.151
0.002 0 0 0 3.3. Effects of initial rock content and initial gradation on the
75 1 1 1 1
degree of crushing
0.84 0.935 0.941 0.962
0.707 0.852 0.891 0.931
0.507 0.685 0.817 0.883 This study puts forward the method of relative fractal dimension
0.427 0.603 0.739 0.826 (as shown in Eq. (3)) to directly compare the degree of crushing for
0.352 0.542 0.667 0.773 weathered phyllite fills with different rock contents. According to
0.253 0.491 0.571 0.703
0.127 0.25 0.378 0.512
the definition of relative fractal dimension, a larger relative fractal
0.063 0.161 0.263 0.359 dimension reflects a greater degree of crushing.
0.031 0.118 0.192 0.249
0.016 0.059 0.138 0.193 Dr ¼ ðDa  D0 Þ = D0 (3)
0.008 0.046 0.103 0.145
0.004 0.028 0.085 0.112 where Dr is the relative fractal dimension of weathered phyllite fills,
0.002 0 0 0
and Da is the fractal dimension of weathered phyllite fills after
276 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278

Table 6
Relative fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills.

Rock content (%) Relative fractal dimension, Dr

After the first compaction After the second compaction

35 0.013 0.059
45 0.016 0.072
55 0.024 0.052
65 0.037 0.095
75 0.08 0.118

55% rock content was lower than that of fills with 35% and 45% rock
contents. This observation did not agree with the findings by
McDowell (2002). It may be caused by the initial particle gradation,
which is of significance for defining the degree of crushing of soil
samples. According to Muir Wood (2006)particle gradation of fills
will certainly define the void ratio and particle breakage of the
sample. He obtained this conclusion by investigating soils with
various PSDs through the discrete element method. He also noticed
Fig. 9. Fitting curves of log10(di/dmax) vs. log10[M(di)/Mt] for weathered phyllite fills that when the particle size range is wider in a single sample, most
before and after compaction.
of the particles might rearrange and reverse under the external
load, thereby reducing the crushing caused by mutual extrusion
and thus lowering the probability of breakage. In addition, Altuhafi
compactions. Note that the values of Da are different, and they
et al. (2011) pointed out that well-graded soil samples exhibit less
change after the first and second compactions. For example, as
breakage than those with uniform gradation; when the gradation is
listed in Table 5, for 35% rock content, Da equals 2.55 after the first
good enough, the gradation of particles will not change, even when
compaction, while it increases to 2.66 after the second compaction.
subjected to high stress or strain. Table 2 shows that the coefficients
The relative fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills
of uniformity (CU) of weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock content
calculated according to Eq. (3) are shown in Table 6.
were larger than those of the fills with other rock contents,
As shown in Table 6, after the first compaction, the relative
meaning that the fills with 55% rock content had a wider particle
fractal dimensions of the weathered phyllite fills with 35%, 45%,
distribution than the other four groups. Accordingly, the fills with
55%, 65% and 75% rock contents were 0.013, 0.016, 0.024, 0.037 and
55% rock content experienced the least breakage in comparison
0.08, respectively. That is, after the first compaction, the relative
with the other four groups after the second compaction.
fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills increase with the rock
For fills with 55% rock content, the coarse grains formed skele-
content. In other words, the degree of crushing increases with the
tons, while the fine grains were filled properly between the skel-
rock content after the first compaction. This is because a larger rock
etons formed by the coarse grains. Thus, the coarse and fine grains
content is related to a higher percentage of large particles. How-
synergistically resisted external load and accordingly, reduced the
ever, large particles are more prone to being broken than small ones
amount of stress on the large particles; for fills with 65% and 75%
because smaller particles tend to exhibit greater strength than
rock contents, more than 60% coarse grains in the fills were large
larger ones. For example, McDowell (2002) also observed that
particles. Due to lack of small particles to fill the skeleton formed by
smaller particles present larger strength. He conducted one-
large particles, the large particles would bear higher stress, which
dimensional compression tests on dry silica Leighton Buzzard
made them more vulnerable to breakage (Vallejo and Lobo-
sand of various initial gradings, and found that the yield strength
Guerrero, 2012; Zhang and Baudet, 2013). For fills with 35% and
increases with the reduction of particle size. To sum up, the
45% rock contents, there were more than 50% fine grains, in which
breakage of weathered phyllite fills seems to increase with the
coarse grains were absent to form the skeleton to resist the external
larger particle content under the first compaction. The data in
load, leading the particles to break more easily.
Table 6 also show that, after the second compaction, the relative
To sum up, with the increase of compaction time (from one to
fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills all increase compared
two), the effect of rock content on the degree of crushing was
with those obtained after the first compaction, indicating that the
weakened. On the other hand, the effect of the initial gradation of
fills have been further broken.
the fills on the degree of crushing increased.
The relative fractal dimension of fills with 55% rock content after
the second compaction was smaller than that with 35% and 45%
rock contents. In other words, the degree of crushing for fills with
4. Conclusions

This study investigated the effects of the initial particle grada-

Table 5 tion and rock content on the crushing behavior (i.e. grain size
Fractal dimensions of weathered phyllite fills before and after compaction.
before and after crushing) of weathered phyllite fills from eastern
Rock content (%) Fractal dimension Ankang section of ShiyaneTianshui highway. The relative fractal
Initial state (D0) After the first After the dimension was used to evaluate the degree of crushing. The
compaction second compaction following conclusions were drawn:
35 2.52 2.55 2.66
45 2.5 2.54 2.68 (1) The relative fractal dimension can be used to compare the
55 2.49 2.55 2.62 degree of crushing among different groups of subgrade fills
65 2.41 2.5 2.64 with weathered phyllite, i.e. a larger relative fractal dimen-
75 2.33 2.52 2.61
sion represents a greater degree of crushing.
 F. Liu et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 12 (2020) 269e278
(2) External work has a great influence on the crushing of
weathered phyllite fills. Particle breakage increases at larger
external work on the particles.
(3) For the first compaction test, the degree of crushing
increased when the rock content increased. For the second
compaction test, weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock
content had a wider particle distribution and experienced
the least breakage.
(4) Weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock content had the op-
timum initial particle gradation and exhibited the least
breakage. Hence, weathered phyllite fills with 55% rock
content are recommended to fill the subgrade.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of
interest associated with this publication, and there has been no
significant financial support for this work that could have influ-
enced its outcome.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51378072 and 51878064) and the
Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of the Central College of
Chang’an University (Grant No. 300102218408). The authors
gratefully acknowledge their financial support. Finally, the first
author would like to thank the financial support provided by the
China Association of Science and Technology (Grant No.
2017CASTQNJL048) for visiting the University of Alberta.
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Feifei Liu is currently a PhD candidate in Disaster Pre-
vention and Mitigation Engineering at Chang’an Univer-
sity, China. In 2018, she was a visiting PhD student at the
University of Alberta, Canada. Before joining her PhD
program, she obtained her MSc degree in Highway and
Railway Engineering at Chang’an University, China in 2013.
Her research focuses on the special subgrade soils and
subgrade disaster prevention, including the characteristics
of soft rock fills, the behavior of frozen soil subgrade, and
the mechanism of moisture migration in subgrade soils.