Advanced testing and characterization of shear modulus and deformation characteristics of oil sand materials

Abstract

Oil sands are natural deposits of sand materials that are rich in bitumen. Limited studies have been conducted to determine the dynamic behavior of oil sand materials. Recent difficulties encountered in oil sand mine fields in Canada substantiated the need to characterize the stress dependent, visco-elastic and plastic behavior of oil sand materials under dynamic loading of off-road construction and mining equipment. This paper introduces a new cyclic triaxial test procedure for determining shear modulus and deformation characteristics of oil sand materials. The test procedure was used to characterize shear moduli of three oil sand materials with varying bitumen contents. From the test results, nonlinear shear modulus models were successfully developed to characterize temperature and stress dependent behavior of the tested oil sand materials. The research findings indicate that the new laboratory approach is an improvement on conventional tests especially when oil sand materials need to be evaluated in the field for subgrade construction and equipment mobility.