Accumulative deformation behaviour of loess under cyclic loading

Abstract

A series of dynamic triaxial tests were carried out in this study, the accumulated plastic strain regulation of the saturated remoulded loess under cyclic loading was studied. Based on the test results, the exponential model applicability of the accumulated plastic strain of loess is discussed and another model of three parameters is proposed. The influences of the dynamic stress amplitude, dynamic loading frequency and wave type of cyclic loading on the accumulated plastic strain of loess are also discussed. With the increase in dynamic stress amplitude, the cycle number becomes less until reaching the same accumulated plastic strain. The accumulated plastic strain has no uniform regulation to the high or low frequency of dynamic loading. In three wave types of cyclic loading, the accumulated plastic strains caused by sine wave and square wave are minimum and maximum respectively. These conclusions can be referred for studying the accumulative behaviour of loess foundation.

Keywords:

• Accumulated plastic strain
• Cycle number
• Dynamic triaxial test

This paper is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 50868012), which is gratefully acknowledged.