Particle Breakage in transitional soils

Oedometer tests were conducted to investigate whether particle breakage plays a significant role in the compression of transitional soils. Artificial mixtures of a carbonate sand and kaolin or a crushed quartz silt were both found to give measurable breakage within the sand fraction even at modest stresses, which is in contrast to the findings from tests by Nocilla et al. (2006) on clayey silts. It was found, therefore, that particle breakage may occur in transitional soils, although it is not a necessary aspect of their behaviour, as would be the case for clean sands. The amount of breakage was fairly similar for the two soils, so that it could also be concluded that the breakage was insensitive to the mineralogy or grading of the matrix material.