Mechanical characterization of lightweight expanded clay particles

Abstract. The objective of the research is to study the mechanical behavior of crushable particles containing an internal porosity. To ease the visualization of grains’ crushing, expanded clay aggregates (LECA) was selected as a model material due to the brittle behavior of its particles and its high internal porosity. Identification of LECA’s physical properties through single grain uniaxial compression tests made it possible to understand the parameters affecting the fragmentation phenomenon. The effect of particle’s dimension was studied by a statistical modeling of the uniaxial compression test results. Results showed a high dependency on both grain ‘s dimension and its internal porosity.