Permanent strain accumulation in a granular material due to cyclic loading

To better characterize the accumulation of permanent deformation in a granular material, 40 Consolidated Drained (CD) triaxial tests (14 static and 26 cyclic) were performed under various stress conditions. A Digital Image Correlation (DIC) technique was utilized in some Repeated Load Triaxial (RLT) tests to measure global and localized strains visually in a non-contact manner. Additionally, the experimentally determined resilient material properties were used in a finite element based pavement modeling software called MICH-PAVE. Under cyclic loading, the permanent strain accumulation was found to obey the relationship of the form epsilonp =aNb, and the Resilient Modulus was used to develop the nonlinear K-theta model for granular materials. The observed/measured permanent strains using DIC/LVDT techniques compared favorably with the values obtained by the finite element simulation, and the evaluation of granular material by multiple methods seems promising for improved pavement design.