Abstract: In order to investigate the effect of bond thickness on the mechanical behavior of idealized bonded granules, based on the previous work in References [1-4], another two kinds of bond thicknesses (i.e. 1.0 and 1.5 mm) between granules are investigated. Then, a series of mechanical tests are performed on the idealized bonded granules with two different bond thicknesses i.e. 1.0 and 1.5 mm, and two different bonding materials, i.e. epoxy resin and Portland cement. The test results show that the effects of bond thickness on the mechanical behaviors of two kinds of bonded granules with different bonding materials are nearly the same, i.e. the peak tension force increases with the increasing of bond thickness, while the peak compression force decreases with the increasing of bond thickness. With the same bond thickness, the peak shear force and rolling resistance increase with the increase of normal force firstly, and then decrease when normal force exceeds a special value. At a given normal force, both the peak shear strength and the rolling resistance will decrease with the increasing of bond thickness. Moreover the strength envelope in the normal-torsion-shear space shrinks almost analogously when the bond thickness changes from 0.6 to 1.5 mm.

Key words: bond thickness, bond material, idealized bonded granules, mechanical test