フアン チェンウェン

氏 名 黄 千 紋
所 属 都市環境科学研究科 都市環境科学専攻 都市基盤環境学域
学 位 の 種 類 博士（工学）
学 位 記 番 号 都市環境博 第 164 号
学位授与の日付 平成 27 年 9 月 30 日
課程・論文の別 学位規則第４条第１項該当
学位論文題名 Study on particle breakage of sands subjected to various
confining stress and shear strain levels（多様な拘束圧及びせん断
ひずみ条件における砂の粒子破砕に関する研究）
論文審査委員 主査 准教授 吉嶺 充俊
委員 教 授 西村 和夫
委員 准教授 上野 敦
委員 准教授 小田 義也

【論文の内容の要旨】

In recent decades, the importance of particle breakage has been recognized in

failure phenomena of saturated or near-saturated sandy soils, i.e., ground deformation,
landslide, and liquefaction. When sand particles are damaged by abrasion, shearing-off
of asperities especially sharp corners or edges, and splitting under higher stress
conditions, the particle breakage can change the original physical properties of soils. It
alters the stiffness and strength, compresses the volume of the materials, and leads to
hazards in practical applications such as bearing capacity reduction of piles and
settlement of earth structures.

In this research, I investigated particle breakage by performing a series of triaxial

tests on the different types of sand ranging from brittle to stiff materials. The tested
materials were consolidated at various confining pressure and sheared up to different
axial strain levels. From the experimental results, I quantified the degree of particle
breakage in terms of breakage indices. Through these process, I can obtain the degree of
particle breakage by triaxial test under a given stress and strain levels.

Despite the fact that triaxial test has be considered as one of the most versatile and
widely performed for evaluating the particle breakage phenomenon, the disadvantage of
this experimental method is the high expense and large time consuming in practice.
Thus, I tried to select alternative methods for assessing particle breakage instead of
triaxial tests. To find more efficient and less time-consuming approaches to evaluate the
particle breakage, I presented a relevant mechanism between particle breakage and
water effects. The mechanism is consistent with the experimental results in terms of
triaxial compression tests and the minimum and maximum densities of sands associated
with differences in mineralogy, particle shape and grain size distribution of the tested
materials. Through these experimental results, I propose a conceptual equation to
calculate brittleness degree of soils that is useful and reasonable for practical works.
This concept was applied to a bounding surface hypoplasticity model for stress-strain
behavior of granular soils to examine the effect of particle breakage. The concept of
intergranular void ratio was introduced to quantify particle breakage. The increment of
fine content, brittleness degree and intergranular void ratio are linked and correlated to
stress-strain response in the model. The results of model simulation exhibit significant
reduction of stiffness and undrained strength of sandy materials due to increase of the
potential of particle breakage.

This thesis is organized in six chapters and the contents of each chapter are briefly
summarized below.

Chapter 1 is the introduction of this study which emphasized the importance of

conducting experimental study on particle breakage of granular materials in
geotechnical issues. Following the introduction, Chapter 2 contains the literature review
where general background theory for the behavior of sands is presented with attention to
the various factors affecting particle breakage, mechanism of particle breakage, and
methods of quantifying particle breakage. The effect of water action phenomenon on
particle breakage is also focused in the context of practical technology for evaluating
degree of particle breakage. Besides experimental researches, challenges of analytical
approaches were reviewed and reported, which attempted to overcome the problems
encountered with the presence of particle breakage. Especially three literatures were
carefully reviewed, namely, basic concepts of constitutive laws, existing numerical
failure shape functions and yield surface by Wang et. al., intergranular void ratio criteria
by Thevanayagm, and an approach of developing a constitutive model respective of
fines content by Rahman, since these concepts play important role in the proposal of
new model in Chapter 5.

Chapter 3 describes the details of four tested materials used in this study and the
testing program including consolidated-drained (CD) triaxial tests and test method of
maximum and minimum density of soils, as well as measuring water absorption of fine
aggregates. The specifications of the materials used were represented by grain size
distributions and particle shape observed through microscope. Instrumentation and data
acquisition system of the high pressure triaxial device are also introduced along with the
details of the testing procedure including the sample preparation processes used for the
formation of the specimens.

Chapter 4 reports the experimental results obtained from CD triaxial tests,

maximum and minimum density tests of soils and water absorption tests for fine
aggregates. A total of 129 CD triaxial tests, 83 minimum density tests and 68 maximum
density tests, as well as 32 water absorption tests were conducted on the four different
sands which have different particle shape and different grain size distribution. In the
series of triaxial tests, consolidated at various confining pressure and sheared up to
different axial strain levels. The test results are carefully examined including the
stress-strain relationship and grain size distribution curves before and after each shear
test to reveal the nature of particle breakage. The amount of particle breakage were
evaluated and quantified by various particle breakage indices in terms of Marsal’s
breakage index, Hardin’s breakage index, Lee and Farhoomad’s breakage index, as well
as the shift of mean particle diameter (D 50 ) and the increment of fines content. Besides
the effects of water action to the particles were investigated for four types of material by
examining the influence of slight water contents on the maximum and minimum
densities. Water absorption of the selected materials are also measured to examine the
effects of water action. Finally, water effects related to particle breakage is then
summarized and a conceptual equation based on increment of fine content and
brittleness degree (B d ) associated with stress and strain levels is then proposed and
discussed in this chapter.

In Chapter 5, a constitutive model of sands is proposed. The proposed procedure

for incorporating brittleness degree (B d ) of soils into the bounding surface
hypoplasticity model for granular soils and the concept of intergranular void ratio (e g ) is
described step by step. Undrained shear behavior of sands with different B d - values was
predicted using the proposed constitutive model. It was shown that brittleness of
particles has significant effect on undrained stress-strain relationship of the sands. When
B d - value was higher, the stiffness and undrained strength considerably decreased. This
numerical study confirms that brittleness of particles should be carefully and properly
considered in engineering designs.
Lastly Chapter 6 gives the conclusions of this study and recommendations for future
research.