Physical Characterization of Granular Components Used in Road Construction

P.A. ARIAS-GARCÍA; M.E. MÉDICI; R.O. UÑAC; A.M. VIDALES; A. LIZCANO

Golden, Colorado, USA

Conferencia; Powders & Grains 2009; 2009

Colorado School of Mine (CSM), USA

It is widely known that the mechanical behaviour of granular soils, with grain sizes ranging from silt to gravel, can be modelled by different  theories, but a special one is hypoplasticity. It has been stablish that parameters of the hypoplastic model are closely related to the granulometric properties of grain assemblies. Thus, a physical characterization of those properties is essential to the understanding of the stress-strain behavior of these solis. In this work we characterize the granular matter constituting the standard material employed for road constructuion. We measure parameters such as: size distribution, flatness and elongation ratios, hardness, different stability angles, compacity and others. All these parameters are measured as a function of the size of the grains. Once this information is obtained, we proceed to perform triaxial and shearing tests of the same material and again as a function of the size of constitutive grains. Finally, we relate the behavior found in stress-strain tests with the characteristic parameters in each size range and compare the results with the so called Bauer equation and with other models used in the hypoplastic approach.