Influence of stress anisotropy on stress distributions in gap-graded soils

The behaviour of gap graded soils comprising non-plastic fines (sand or silt) mixed with a coarser sand or gravel fraction has received attention from researchers interested in internal instability under seepage loading (a form of internal erosion) as well as researchers interested in load:deformation responses. Skempton and Brogan [1] postulated that resistance to seepage induced instability depends upon the proportion of the overall applied stress that is transmitted by the finer fraction. Shire et al. [2] explored Skempton and Brogan’s hypothesis using DEM simulations to look at the proportion of the applied stress transmitted by the finer fractions (α) in ideal isotropic samples. They showed that at low fines contents (FC FC the fines play a key role in stress transmission (α>1); for FC更多