A Carbonate Sand Particle Crushing under Monotonic Loading

The unique behaviour of carbonate materials under shear loading has stimulated in investigating oftheir geological and engineering properties. carbonate soils composed ofcalcium or other carbonates and most abundant in tropical marine environments are ofinterestfrom geotechnical view, especiallyfor offshore engineers engaged with fossil-basedfuel exploitation. this was initiated in the early 1960's, when thefirst offshore borings in the persian gulfidentified layers ofcalcarenite and thick layers ofsand containing visible shell fragments. for the purpose ofexploiting gas and oil resources in hot and temperate climates (e.g. persian gulf) off-sh.ore structures have been placed on carbonate soils. the carbonate sediments are high crushable compared with low crushable sediments such as quartzic soils. to examine the crushability of these problematic sediments a series of monotonic compression, extension and post-cyclic triaxial tests under different densities and confining pressures was carried out to study the crushing behaviour of rock carbonate sand obtained from cornwall, england. it was shown that crushing coefficient decreases with increasing in maximum principal effective stressratio for both loose anddensestates. itseemsthatforskeletalcarbonate sandmaximumand minimum dry densities will be changed during shearing loading. in other words, even though the sample has experienced an increase in density, it may also have experienced a reduction in relative density.