Volumen 38 (2016): Edición 4 (December 2016)

This paper presents results of a series of undrained monotonic compression tests on loose sand reinforced with geotextile mainly to study the effect of confining stress on the mechanical behaviour of geotextile reinforced sand. The triaxial tests were performed on reconstituted specimens of dry natural sand prepared at loose relative density (Dr = 30%) with and without geotextile layers and consolidated to three levels of confining pressures 50, 100 and 200 kPa, where different numbers and different arrangements of reinforcement layers were placed at different heights of the specimens (0, 1 and 2 layers). The behaviour of test specimens was presented and discussed. Test results showed that geotextile inclusion improves the mechanical behaviour of sand, a significant increase in the shear strength and cohesion value is obtained by adding up layers of reinforcement. Also, the results indicate that the strength ratio is more pronounced for samples which were subjected to low value of confining pressure. The obtained results reveal that high value of confining pressure can restrict the sand shear dilatancy and the more effect of reinforcement efficiently.

From the viewpoint of environmental preservation and effective utilization of resources, it is beneficial and necessary to reuse wastes, for example, concrete, as the recycled aggregates for new materials. In this work, the dynamic behavior of such aggregates under low frequency torsional loading is studied. Results show that the properties of such artificial soils match with those reported in the literature for specific natural soils.

Corrugated steel plates are highly rigid and as the constructions can be immersed in soil, they can be used as soil-steel structures. With an increase of cover depth, the effectiveness of operating loads decreases. A substantial reduction of the impacts of vehicles takes place as a road or rail surface with its substructure is crucial. The scope of load’s impact greatly exceeds the span L of a shell. This article presents the analysis of deformations of the upper part of a shell caused by a live load. One of the assumptions used in calculations performed in Plaxis software was the circle-shaped shell and the circumferential segment of the building structure in the 2D model. The influence lines of the components of vertical and horizontal displacements of points located at the highest place on the shell were used as a basis of analysis. These results are helpful in assessing the results of measurements carried out for the railway structure during the passage of two locomotives along the track. This type of load is characterized by a steady pressure onto wheels with a regular wheel base. The results of measurements confirmed the regularity of displacement changes during the passage of this load.

The formation of a pile in the existing foundation and soil creates a new foundation construction which has a structure of foundation-pile-soil. This construction must be able to transfer loads from the foundation to the pile and from the pile to the soil.

The pile structure has to transfer an imposed load. From the point of view of continuum mechanics determination of the capacity of such a system is preceded by the analysis of contact problem of three contact surfaces. Each of these surfaces is determined by different pairs of materials. The pair which creates a pile anchorage is a material from which the foundation is built (structure of stone and grout, brick and grout, concrete or reinforced concrete and grout. The pile structure is formed by grout and steel rebar. The pile formed in soil is created by a pair of grout and soil. What is important is that on contact surfaces the materials adhering to one another are subjected to different deformation types that are controlled by mechanical properties and geometry of these surfaces.

In the paper, additional conditions that should be fulfilled for the foundation-pile-soil system to make load transfer from foundation to soil possible and safe are presented. The results of research done by the author on foundation-pile contact surface are discussed. The tests were targeted at verifying the bearing capacity of anchorage and deformation of piles made of grout and other materials from which foundations are built. The specimens were tested in tension and compression. The experiments were conducted on the amount specimens which is regarded as small sample to enable the statistical analysis of the results.

An unconventional subdivision of volumetric strains, the newly formulated frictional and critical frictional states and some of energetic and stress condition assumptions result in new stress-plastic dilatancy relationships. These new stress-plastic dilatancy relationships are functions of the deformation mode and drainage conditions. The critical frictional state presented in this paper is a special case of the classical critical state.

Different forms of the stress-dilatancy relations obtained based on the frictional theory for the triaxial condition are presented. The analysed test data show that the shear resistance of many soils is purely frictional. The angle Φ⁰ represents the resistance of the soil as a combined effect of sliding and particle rolling on the macro-scale during shear at the critical frictional state. The stress-plastic dilatancy relations differ not only for triaxial compression and extension but also for drained and undrained conditions. The experiment investigated shows the correctness of the frictional state theory in the triaxial condition.