PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNBOUND AGGREGATES IN ROADS/UNBAR 5/NOTTINGHAM/UNITED KINGDOM/21 ~ 23 JUNE 2000 Unbound Aggregates in Road Construction Edited by Andrew R. Dawson University of Nottingham, United Kingdom | | | A.A.BALKEMA/ROTTERDAM/ BROOKFIELD/ 2000Unbound Aggregates in Road Construction, Dawson (ed) © 2000 Balkema, Rotterdam, ISBN 90.5809 1479 Anisotropic characteristics of granular material M. Karasahin Civil Engineering Department, S. Demirel! University, Isparta, Turkey A.R.Dawson ‘School of Civil Engineering, University of Nottingham, UK ABSTRACT: Anisotropy is an important characteristic of granular material but has normally been neglected in the design of pavement structures, There has been litt le or no work on the anisotropy of granular materials for pavement construction. This may be due to the difficulty of testing of coarse granular material. In the study, resilient anisotropic characteristics of granular mat apparatus. Both inherent and stress-induced anisotropy materials have different anisotropic properties. Results pattern for change in anisotropy 1 INTRODUCTION In order to understand the mechanical behaviour of granular material under traffic loading, either site tests or laboratory tests or both should be carried ‘out. Site testing is generally time consuming and expensive relative to laboratory testing. However, laboratory tests are not able to apply the full loading, regime experienced in-situ, so some simplification is needed. In the research described here the repeated load triaxial apparatus was used Casagrande and Carillo [1944] may have been the first researchers to differentiate between the inherent and the stress-induced anisotropy. Anisotropy is defined as the ratio of axial strain to radial strain under isotropic stress conditions [Biarez and Hicker, 1987}. Inherent anisotropy is a physical characteristic inherent in granular material and mainly occurs due to deposition/arrangement of particles {Arthur and Menzies, 1972; Ochai and Lade, 1983; Gerrard and Mulholland, 1966]. Stress- induced anisotropy occurs during the process of straining of soil particles [Biarez and Wiendieck, 1963; Arthur et al, 1977}. Oda and Sudoo [1989] found that the stress-induced anisotropy is mainly due to plastic strain. It should be possible to measure the resilient anisotropic characteristics of a granular material in a repeated load triaxial apparatus; simply by cycling of the cell. pressure, However, other fest equipments such as the hollow cylinder ‘apparatus [Symes et al, 1984] and the cubical triaxail apparatus (Arthur et al, 1977; Wong and Arthur, 1985; Haruyama, 1981; Matsuoka and 139 terials were measured using the repeated load triaxial were measured. Test results indicated that different also indicated that it is quite difficult to establish a Ishizaki, 1981] can also be used to measure aniotropic characteristics of granular material. Many researchers have worked on anisotropic characteristics of sand [Morgan and Gerrard, 197. Arthur et al, 1977; Symes et al, 1984, Wong and ‘Arthur, 1985]. However, little testing has been carried out for road making materials, the recent work by Tutumluer being an exception [Tutumluer, 1999]. In this research, soft limestone (SL) and sandd&gravel (S&G) materials were used. After sample preparation the sample was subjected to isotropic loading to determine the inherent anisotropy. After that, many resilient tests. were carried on the sample in order to see the siress- induced anisotropy. Test results indicated that it is very difficult to define a simple rule for anisotropic behaviour of the granular material. This indicates that anisotropy is probably affected by many factors such as mineral type, particle shape, density and grading. Research showed that the coarse materials are more sensitive to anisotropy than the fine materials. 2 OCCURRENCE OF ANISOTROPY IN A GRANULAR LAYER In naturally occurring soil deposits, grains are sedimented under a gravitional force in such @ way that non-spherical grains are situated with their long sides perpendicular to the direction of the gravitional force. As a result of this orientation the soil usually has a higher stiffness in the vertical direction than in the horizontal direction. However, in the granular layer of a pavement the situation is slightly different.Granular layers in the pavement (either base or sub- base) are compacted to achieve a maximum density so that they can provide adequate support and reduced deflection. During the compaction process the layer will almost become anisotropic due to the vertical compactive load applied to it. The layer will then be stiffer vertically than horizontally. Different forms of anisotropy exist namely inherent, stress- induced and stress-history-induced anisotropy. 2.1 Inherent Anisotropy In highway construction, granular material is generally obtained from a local quarry which satisfies the specification. It is then transported to the site and a suitable vibrating roller compacts the granular layer in order to achieve the desired density. As 2 consequence of the compaction effort the layer is expected to be more stiffer in the vertical direction than the horizontal direction. In other words, for isotropic test conditions the layer will deform more in the horizontal direction than the vertical direction. For pavement engineering purposes inherent anisotropy may be defined as the physical characteristics inherent in the granular material due to compaction and gravitional cause, 22 Stress-induced Anisotropy Stress-induced anisotropy is defined as a physical property of a soil due only to strain associated with an applied stress [Arthur et al, 1977]. An isotropic material will behave isotropically under the application of an isotropic loading. However, when the applied stress is no longer isotropic, in other words is not the same in all directions, the material will no longer strain isotropically. Therefore, new contact points occur and the stress/strain behaviours vertically and horizontally will no longer be in the same relationship to each other as before. When the stress is removed the contact points may return the original position as long as the strain is resilient. If a granular layer in a pavement structure is considered, stress-induced anisotropy is experienced due to a resilient change in granular layer structure due to the passage of a vehicle. 23 Stress-history Induced Anisotropy Traffic mainly consists of heavy vehicles that cause relatively large amounts of recoverable and some irrecoverable (plastic) deformations. During plastic deformation some contacts between grains disappear, some particles could break, some particles slide relative to one other and some new contacts will develop. As a result of plastic strain the inherent anisotropy which existed before trafficking has changed. ‘Therefore, the deformation 140 characteristics of the granular layer before repeated trafficking and afterwards will not be the same. Stress-history-induced anisotropy for pavement engineering purposes can thus be defined as the change in inherent anisotropy caused by the repeated application of traffic loading in a granular layer. 3. MATERIALS Sand & gravel is a road construction material mostly ited to use as a capping layer. The material was obtained from a pavement trial at Bothkenner, Scotland and was tested dry. Crushed limestone isan important road construction material both in Turkey and UK, The ‘material used in the study was a dolomotic limestone supplied: from Whitwell Quarry in Derbyshire. It may have a self-cementing capability when it is in a partially saturated condition. For this reason the material was compacted in a dry condition. 4 SAMPLE PREPARATION ‘The bottom platen of a triaxial apparatus was placed on a smooth table and an inner membrane was stretched to fit around it, An “O" ring was then placed over the inner membrane to form an airtight seal. The mould was then placed on top of the bottom platen while the inner membrane was held inside. The membrane was stretched upwards and folded over the top of the mould upon which an extension ring was placed, locking the membrane in place. A vacuum was applied through the mould to hold the membrane against its sides. It was seen that from the previous specimen preparation that the fine particles tended to migrate downwards whereas coarse aggregates moved upwards during the vibratory compaction. In order to prevent this migration of fine material, the coarse fraction of particles were laid by hand before migration. This was done for each layer to obtain a uniform sample, During compaction a full-face 150- mm diameter circular shaped surcharge load was placed on the layer. Each layer was subjected to vibration for 15 seconds. The densities achieved are given in Table 1. The low density of soft limestone are attributable to its grading, Grading curves are shown in Figure 1. Since the research is concentrated on the stress- strain behaviour of the particle size, dry material was Table 1 Sample Densities “Material ‘Density kan Soft imestone 1641 Sand&Gravel 2.463Ww - Cell : Axial load supply _ SESS Pere 80 ae gt 4 supply limestone $ | = Axial load ram % 0 Triaxial a | cell 2 | 0 Hoops oot ot 1 10 100 particle size (mm) Figure |, Materials grading ‘generally used so that the applied stress measured ‘would be the same as effective stress. 5 REPEATED TEST EQUIPMENT LOAD TRIAXIAL In the study a repeated load triaxial apparatus was used. The axial and confining pressure are applied to the samples in a triaxial cell by hydraulic actuators, The axial load is continuously monitored by a load cell and similarly, the confining pressure is controlled by the output of a pressure sensor in the cell fluid. ‘The equipment is illustrated in Figure 2. The internal dimension of the cell is 300-mm diameter and 550 mm high. The sample size is 150- mm diameter and 300 mm high. The confining, stress is applied on the sample through silicone oil The apparatus is able to cycle both axial and confining stress either separately or simultaneously. Radial deformations were measured by hoops incorporating strain gauges. Axial deformations were measured using linear variable deformation transducers (LVDTs) mounted between the two pairs of threaded rods, Details of the apparatus can be found from Karasahin [1993], 6 SEQUENCE OF TESTING In order to determine the inherent anisotropy of a sample, it was first subjected to a repeated cell pressure with half sine waveform from a low stress ‘of 25 kPa to an upper stress, increased in 25 kPa increments, ranging from 50 kPa to 225 kPa, During the axial loading ram was disconnected, 50 cycles ‘were applied to the sample for each stress path. During the last five cycles stresses and strains were recorded for evaluation. In order to see the effect of resilient loading on anisotropy, resilient repeated cell pressure tests with constant (and non-zero) deviatoric stresses, resilient deviatoric stress tests with constant cell pressure and tests with the cycling of both stresses were applied 141 Silicone oil | ea sae Figure 2. Repeated load trixial apparatus ‘on each sample. 50 cycles of loading were applied to the sample on each stress path. In order to see the sttess-history-induced anisotropy in the sample, it was subjected to about 1% axial permanent deformation due to a repeated a deviatoric stress level of 250 kPa at a 50 kPa cell pressure, The load ram was again disconnected and the stress paths for the determination of the inherent anisotropy was repeated 7 DISCUSSION OF RESULTS ANISOTROPY TEST Inherent, stress-induced and_stress-history-induced anisotropy will be discussed separately. For the discussion, the results obtained for a wide range of repeatéd cell pressures starting from 25 kPa and rising to 225 kPa were chosen. Limited results are given for the stress-induced anisotropy since, for various reasons, incomplete data was available from the tests, In figures 3, 4, 5 and 6 anisotropy is defined as the ratio vertical strain/horizontal astrain. Thus a value of 1.0 indicates isotropy and a value approaching 0.0 is highly anisotropic.TA Inherent anisotropy Peak values of anisotropy for different materials are shown in Figure 3 and 4, When granular material is loaded it shows more inherent anisotropy than when it is unloaded (for example Figure 5). At low stress levels of isotropic stress significant anisotropy was observed (Figure 5). The anisotropy decreases as the isotropic pressure increases. For unloading the material initially behaves more isotropically, however it reverts to its highly anisotropic characteristics on subsequent loading, 7.2 Stress-History-Induced Anisotropy At low stress levels a high inherent anisotropy, now termed the stress-history-induced anisotropy to distinguish from the original values, was obtained Figure $A typical change in anisotropy during a eycle (Figure 3 and Figure 4) being much more anisotropic than previously. However, for loading and unloading conditions, the response is a little more isotropic when compared with the original anisottopy (Figure 5). The granular material behaviour becomes more anisotropic after many stress applications (Figure 5 and 6). 7.3. Stress -Induced Anisotropy In order to see the effect of anisotropic stress, in this case deviatoric stress, on inherent anisotropy in granular material, a limited number of tests were carried out. First only the cell pressure was cycled from 100-150 kPa without deviatoric stress to measure the inherent anisotropy. Subsequently a non-cycling deviatoric stress (starting from 50 and rising to 200 kPa in increments of 50 kPa) was added and cell pressure was again cycled at a frequency of 1 Hz. During the application of a deviatoric stress cycle the inherent anisotropy changed (Figure 6). The granular material became very much more anisotropic under any anisotropic loading, but the anisotropy measured was not sensitive to the amount of deviatoric loading. Therefore, for pavement analysis one needs to define directional mechancial properties of granular materials such as two Young's ‘moduli and two Poisson’ ratio, 8 GRANULAR MATERIAL ANISOTROPY. CONSIDERATIONS IN PAVEMENT DESIGN. The effect of anisotropy for fatigue design may be considered relatively unimportant since the difference in pavement life calculated considering the isotropic and anisotropic material properties is 10 — 08 506 | g Hoa —e inherert 02 ~#- stress 00 a 0 9 10 1 280 (clic cal pressure (kPa) Figure 3. Sandéegravel anisotropy test results 12. ae & B06 on: a ee Gr heed 025 stress-hist oe meecTIEEE 0 50. 100 150 200 250 Cyclic cell pressure (kPa) Figure 4, Soft limestone anisotropy test results Cal resste Figure 5 A typical change in anisotropy during a cycle about 5%. However, for the plastic strain life the difference is about 10% [Karasahin, 1993]. Therefore, using the isotropic properties may lead to under or over-design problems. 142Arta teerea Inherent [-eiimestone || aril | anisotropy 0 80 © 100 150-200 280 Constant deviator stress (KPa) Figure 6 Stress-induced anisotropy test results 9 CONCLUSIONS Anisowopy measutements were made using the repeated load triaxial apparatus cycling only the cell pressure at different stress levels. Each material had different inherent, stress-induced and stress-history- induced anisotropic properties. Inherent anisotropy is generally lower at low stress levels. Stress-history due to plastic strain changes the structure of granular material, hence the inherent anisotropy also changed. For a particular cycle of loading the material was more anisotropic during loading than unloading. Anisotropic stresses such as deviatoric stresses cause stress-induced anisotropy 10 REFERENCES Arthur, JRF & Menzies, BK, 1972, Inherent anisotropy in a sand, Geotechnique, Volume 22, No:l, pp 115-128. 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