Test Study And Numerical Simulation On Wetting Deformation Of Gravel Sand

In this paper, the ETM unsaturated tri-axial apparatus is adopted to test and study the wetting deformation properties of gravel-sand materials under isotropic confined pressure and shearing conditions, and also analyze the increment of the volumetric strain and the deviator strain during the wetting deformation of various stress states . On this basis, an empirical equation is thus put forward to elaborate the relations among the increment of wetting volumetric strain and deviator strain, the stress level and the confining pressure, and in return, the available data of wetting deformation tests is applied to verify this equation.Furthermore, this empirical equation, together with corresponding finite element calculating program, is applied to calculate and analyze the stress strain of Xinjiang "635" Clay-core Gravel Sand Dam during its initial reservoir impounding.Through comparing the calculating result with the actual observed data at the dam, it shows that the calculated settlement and the horizontal displacement of dam shell at upstream is definitely less than the values observed at the dam site if the wetting deformation of gravel sand is not taken into account. If considering the wetting deformation of gravel sand, the calculated result is approximate to the observed value. This implies that the wetting deformation must be taken into account when calculating and analyzing the stress strain of clay-core gravel dam during the first reservoir impounding, and also verifies that the approach suggested inside this paper is quite reasonable.