Crushing Properties of Sand Grains during Shear at High Confining Pressures.

In order to clarify the property of grain crushing of a sand during a high pressure triaxial compression test, a mineralogical examination was made on the samples sheared under such a high confining pressure as 100 kg/sq. cm. Comparing two samples, which were compressed under the same confining pressure but in the states of different initial porosities, it was found that they were experienced the different features of crushing of their main mineral particles, quartz, chert and feldspar. This phenomenon was considered to be related to the volume change characteristics of the samples during shear tests.