Effects of moisture content on the cyclic behavior of crushed tuff aggregates by large-scale tri-axial test

The crushed rock aggregates are widely used as road base and subbase fillings of road. The moisture content of the crushed aggregates changes due to rainfalls and water infiltration from the pavement cracks during the road service period, and this usually brings detrimental effects to the performance of road base and subbase. To investigate the effects of moisture content on the resilient modulus and accumulated strain of crushed aggregates under cyclic loadings, comparative experiments on samples under optimum moisture condition and saturated condition were conducted through a large-scale tri-axial apparatus. Different cyclic stress amplitudes, confining pressures and initial deviatoric stresses were also considered in the experiments. Test results show that the change from optimum to saturated moisture content aggravates the accumulated axial strain and reduces the resilient modulus of the aggregates under cyclic loading. The influence of moisture content on the cyclic behavior of CTAs is related to the factors such as cyclic stress ratio and initial deviatoric stress.