ABSTRACT
A method to estimate the durability of rockfill materials against deterioration was investigated in order to maintain rockfill dams over the long term. The compressive yield stress, which was measured by one-dimensional compression tests for rockfill materials, was used to represent the durability. To verify the validity of the method, tests were carried out for several different kinds of rocks, and the original material and the artificially-damaged material were compared with one other for each kind of rock. From the results, the differences among the various kinds of rocks were interpreted. Firstly, for every kind of rock, the value for the original material was much larger than that for the artificially-damaged material. Secondly, for all the different kinds of rocks tested, the values for the stronger rocks were larger than those for the weaker rocks. These results were also in agreement with the strength values obtained from triaxial compression tests.
