ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: This study investigated the influence of moisture on the Resilient Deformation (RD) properties of Unbound Granular Materials (UGMs). A typical UGM used in pavement constructions with three different grain size distributions were tested with a range of moisture contents using Repeated Load Triaxial tests (RLTTs). From the European standard, the procedure for the study of the RD behaviour was used where each stress path is applied for 100 cycles. Additionally, the Multi-Stage (MS) loading procedure for the study of the permanent deformation behaviour were used where each stress path is applied for 10,000 cycles, to compare the results using the two test procedures. Results showed that resilient modulus (MR) generally decreased with increase in moisture, where the finer grading was more affected. However, for the MS RLTTs, after a large number of load applications, some increase in MR with increasing moisture was observed. This happened when the moisture content increased up to close to the optimum; above the optimum, MR always decreased. This may be due to Post-Compaction (PC) aided by moisture in MS RLTTs where a large number of load cycles were applied.
