STUDY ON SHEAR STRENGTH CHARACTERISTICS OF CORAL SAND SUBJECTED TO CYCLIC LOAD BY DIRECT SHEAR TEST

Abstract

Coral sand is a quite propular material at shallow soil layers of islands in Truong Sa sea area and plays an important role in construction of structure foundations. When subjected to external load, especially cyclic loads such as wave load, wind load, coral sand particles are crushed leading to change in mechanical properties. In most of published studies, coral sand is considered as a granular material having only a shear strength property of internal friction angle. In Vietnam, there is few research on shear strength characteristics of coral sand. Hence, the authors, in this research, carried out an experimental study on shear strength characteristics of coral sand subjected to c shear strength; ycling load by direct shear tests. It is derived from the study that coral sand has apparent cohesion and the accumulative strain of coral sand increases with a number of loading cycles.