STRENGTH AND DEFORMATION OF SOFT ROCKS UNDER CYCLIC LOADING CONSIDERING LOADING PERIOD EFFECTS

Cost-effective design is the primary motivation for adopting the performance-based design method. This method, however, requires that deformations be reliably estimated. While soft rocks are known to be competent foundation materials for large-scale structures, the deformation characteristics of this material when subjected to large cyclic loadings still have to be understood. In this study, the strength and deformation characteristics of soft rocks under cyclic loadings were investigated by conducting cyclic triaxial tests on natural soft rock samples. The loading histories that were applied to these samples were uniform amplitude cyclic loadings with loading periods between 1 s and 9000 s. The tests revealed that the longer the loading period, the larger is the residual strain accumulated for a certain number of loading cycles. This dependency of residual strain accumulation on loading period appears to be an intrinsic material property which is irrespective of loading amplitude and water content. From this finding, it can be inferred that the prevailing practice of soft rock cyclic loading tests at 300 s and 9000 s of cyclic loading periods, which are much longer than that of earthquakes, can result in overestimated residual strains.