Article history: Received 29 October 2015 Received in revised form 18 December 2015 Accepted 19 December 2015 Available online 29 December 2015 Particle shape plays an important role in determining the engineering behaviour of granular materials. In this regard, characterisation and quantification of particle shape are essential for understanding the behaviour of granular materials. X-ray micro...

Recent advances in experimental characterization techniques offer unique opportunities to evaluate mechanical properties of geomaterials. In this paper, authors introduce two such techniques that have significant potential to impact geomechanics community. The technique of using Instrumented indentation testing using nano-indenter to evaluate hardness and modulus of individual sand particles is...

For the island and reef project formed by filling calcareous sand, problems of wide particle size distribution (PSD) complex mechanical properties have to be faced. Therefore, in order provide basic parameters for construction project, triaxial shear tests were carried out on sands with five different typical PSDs. The results showed that as gradation became narrower, axial strain corresponding...

BACKGROUND This study evaluated the effect of air-particle abrasion with different particle sizes on the surface roughness and phase transformation of yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia ceramics (Y-TZP). METHODS Eighty-four Y-TZP discs of 15 mm diameter and 1.0 mm thickness were fabricated. The samples were divided into four groups (n = 21): (1) air-particle abrasion with 30 μm CoJet sand ...