A MESOSCOPIC EQUIVALENT ANALYSIS METHOD FOR THE STUDY ON MACROMECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF SOIL-ROCK MIXTURE

Soil-rock mixture is significantly different from soil and rock in structure, mechanical properties and deformation behavior. Considering the mesoscopic structure of soil-rock mixture which can be treated as a two-phase composite of rock blocks and soil, a mesoscopic equivalent analysis method for studying the macro-mechanical properties of soil-rock mixture is proposed. Two key problems of the method, mainly about the rock size threshold and equivalent method of soil-rock mixture, are discussed. Firstly, homogenization process is conducted on the "small" stones and soil to obtain the equivalent homogeneous isotropic matrix. Then the new soil-rock mixture is formed by placing the "big" stones in the equivalent matrix, and its mechanical behavior and deformation feature are analyzed using numerical approaches. Based on the method, consolidated drained triaxial tests of soil-rock mixture are simulated. The analysis shows that the results obtained by the mesoscopic equivalent analysis method are in good agreement with those obtained by the tests, thus proves the efficiency of the method.