The Mechanical Response of Wet Volcanic Sand to Impact Loading, Effects of Water Content and Initial Compaction

The effects of water content and initial compaction on the dynamic response of volcanic sand from Mount Etna were investigated by a series of experiments on a long Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar apparatus capable of generating stress pulses of duration exceeding one millisecond. The dynamic stress–strain characteristics were determined until large final compressive strains were achieved. An experimental protocol for the preparation of samples characterised by different initial porosity and moisture content was defined in order to reproduce, in a laboratory environment, granular volcanic aggregates representative of naturally occurring soils in different initial density and water content states. It was found that, for limited amounts of water content, the dynamic response of the investigated volcanic wet sand is more compliant than in dry conditions. Conversely, highly saturated samples exhibit a steep increase in stiffness occurring at strains when the dynamic compressive behaviour becomes dominated by the response of the nearly incompressible water. The presence of water has negligible effect on the mechanical behaviour when the samples are loaded at quasi static strain rates. The grain size distribution and morphology of samples tested in different conditions were evaluated and compared by means of edge detection analysis techniques applied to high contrast images.