LAUSR

Abstract To investigate the effect of temperature and strain rate on the mechanical properties of frozen loess, a series of uniaxial compressive tests were conducted on saturated frozen Helin loess under five different strain rates (1 × 10 − 2 /s, 1 × 10 − 3 /s, 1 × 10 − 4 /s, 5 × 10 − 5 /s, and 1 × 10 − 5 /s) and at four different temperatures (− 2 °C, − 4 °C, − 5 °C, and − 7 °C). From the stress-strain curves under different testing condition, the stain-softening behavior is observed and the yield point can be obviously seen. The yield stress and strength increase linearly with the decrease of temperature and increase exponentially with the increase of strain rate. The initial tangent modulus and the secant modulus corresponding to half the strength are taken to describe the stiffness of frozen loess. And the effects of temperature and strain rate on the tangent and secant modulus are analyzed. Furthermore, an elasto-plastic constitutive model considering the effects of temperature and strain rate has been proposed to describe the strength and deformation behavior of frozen Helin loess.