Brittleness index of lightly cemented soil in ring shear tests

Abstract

The brittleness index exhibits the strain-softening behaviour of sail and is often used to access the shear mechanism in slope failure. It has been widely investigated for diffirent materials, especially for brittle materials. However, the brittleness index of lightly cemented soils has not been investigated yet. In this study, the brittleness index of lightly cemented clay simulated by adding a small content of cement to clay will be investigated in ring shear test. A series of ring shear tests were conducted at different effective normal stress levels from 98 kPa to 392 kPa and shear rates from 0.02 mm/min to 20 mm/min. The test results showed that the brittleness index decreases with the increasing of effective normal stress, cement content, and shear displacement rates. However, the brittleness index was almost unchanged when the cement content was higher than 2%.