Shear Strength and One-dimensional Compression Characteristics of Granitic Gneiss Rockfill Dam Material

In this study, a rockfill-dam material was investigated on its shear strength and compressibility by performing large-scaled triaxial and oedometer tests. The rockfill material was compacted at two different compaction levels and sheared in triaxial compression at three different confining stresses. Also, rockfill samples were prepared to have three different grain size distributions but the same dry density. Each sample with a given grain size distribution was then compressed one-dimensionally in a large-scaled oedometer cell with and without soaking. The rockfill samples exhibited slightly different shear behaviors with the varying compaction and confining stress levels. The increase in the compaction level changed the behavior from contractive to dilative. Dilation decreased gradually with increasing confining stress, resulting in reduction in the peak shear strength. The large-scaled oedometer test results showed that particle breakages increased with increasing average particle sizes of the samples. Comparing the samples with different gradations, a relatively well-graded sample exhibited lower compressibility. For saturated samples, slightly higher deformations were observed, compared to dry samples. The values of tangent constrained modulis for the dry samples were larger by about 10 to 20, on the average, than those for the saturated samples.