• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.45-55
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• 2008

CFRD (Concrete Faced Rockfill Dam) has been world-widely constructed due to a lot of advantages which it has compared with rockfill dam and recently, sand/gravel materials, Instead of crushed rock materials, are also utilized as a main rockfill material to overcome geological and environmental problems. In Korea, two dams using sand/gravel materials as a main fill material were designed and are being constructed. In this research, the strength and deformation characteristics of the rockfill and sand/gravel materials taken from 2 dam sites were tested by using a laboratory large triaxial testing equipment for a total of 7 cases. From the results of large triaxial and compaction tests, it was observed that two kinds of materials show a little different compaction, shear strenght and deformation characteristics. It could be expected that the shear strength of sand/gravel material was not disadvantageous compared with that of rockfill materials, however, there was some difference between two materials with respect to behavior characteristics. On the other hand, smaller displacements were observed from numerical analysis based on the data from a large triaxial test when the sand/gravel is used as a main fill material compared with the case when the crushed rock material is used as a main fill material. Finally, in spite of a little different shear strength and behavior characteristic between two materials, it was concluded that it will not lead to a significant problem when the sand/gravel material is used as a main rockfill material.