Laboratory Characterization of Talley Brick

Personnel of the Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center conducted a laboratory investigation to characterize the strength and constitutive property behavior of Talley brick. A total of 24 mechanical property tests were successfully completed, i.e., three hydrostatic compression tests, three unconfined compression UC tests, 12 triaxial compression TXC tests, two uniaxial strain UX tests, two uniaxial-strain-loadconstant-volumetric-strain in-load UXCV tests, and two direct-pull DP tests. In addition to the mechanical property tests, nondestructive, pulse-velocity measurements were obtained from each specimen. The TXC tests exhibited a continuous increase in maximum principal stress difference with increasing confining stress. A compression failure surface was developed from the TXC test results at six levels of confining pressure and from the results of the UC tests. The results of the DP tests were used to determine the unconfined tensile strength of Talley brick. The Talley brick specimens displayed tensile strengths of less than 10 of the unconfined compressive strength. The UXCV stress-path data intersect and then follow the failure surface developed from the TXC tests, as expected.