Rockfill Modelling

Abstract

Rockfill material cannot be tested in a natural scale because of the particle size. So there are doubts concerning the accuracy of the laboratory results obtained by the modelling of this material.

The main purpose of this work is to contribute to the answer of this question.

The minimum size sample that may be tested in laboratory, the parameters used in modelling rockfill materials, the quantitative influence on engineering properties of granular materials tested in a size smaller than the prototype, and the effects of modelling the samples in different conditions of relative density, water content and weathering, are analysed.

The study is supported on one-dimensional compression and triaxial tests of rockfill materials with sizes reduced to about 6, 16 and 30 times those of the prototype.

Besides the influence of the parameters referred to the laboratory results confirmed that particle breakage is the mechanism that more strongly affects the behaviour of this type of material.