Thermo-mechanical behavior of sand-clay mixtures. Part I: experimental study

Experimental studies on the thermo-mechanical properties of binary mixtures have not been well addressed. In this study, we conducted a series of temperature-controlled triaxial drained compression tests to investigate thermal effects on shear responses of binary mixtures of quartz sand and kaolin clay. The results demonstrated that the peak state deviatoric stress, the peak state friction angle, the axial strain of the specimen at the peak state, the relative softening coefficient, maximum dilatancy angle, and the secant modulus of the sand-clay mixtures are considerably influenced by the confining pressure, fine content or temperature. A modified stress-dilatancy equation was proposed by incorporating the influences of fine content and temperature, and the calculated results show that the stress-dilatancy behavior of sand-clay mixtures can be described within a limited range.