Statistics of soil particle strength

It is widely accepted that the macroscopic behaviour of granular materials is strongly influenced by the tensile strengths of the constituent grains. Billam (1972) related dilatancy rate at failure in triaxial tests to minor principal effective stress normalised by grain strength. Lee (1992) showed that the dilatational component of angle of internal friction reduces logarithmically with mean effective stress at failure normalised by average grain strength. McDowell & Bolton (1998) proposed that, for aggregates subjected to one-dimensional compression, the yield stress should be proportional to the average particle tensile strength. Nakata et al. (2001) also related yield to particle...