Fractal and re-breakage behavior of the saturated rock granular material under compaction

A compaction experiment of the saturated rock granular material is conducted to investigate its fractal and re-breakage behavior under compaction. The samples after compaction have obvious fraction characteristics, the variation of grain size distribution (GSD) and the fractal characteristics of samples with different Talbot power exponent (TPE) are analyzed. It presents that samples after compaction still obey to the modified Talbot continuous gradation equation, and its coefficient increases with the compaction degree going on; however, the samples with larger TPE are much easier to far away from the modified equation than samples with smaller TPEs. Sample with different TPEs reach their most obvious re-breakage at the different compaction levels. It can be inferred that 10 mm is an appropriate compression for the sample with the TPE of 0.5, and 30 mm for 0.6. The suitable compaction for the samples with TPEs of 0.7, 0.8, and 0.9 could be found as the curves are converged. During the compaction process, the fractal dimension (FD) and re-breakage degree of samples with the different TPEs increase with the compression going on, which result in the new GSD. These results could be used to guide engineering practice to obtain the optimal compaction for samples with different TPE.