Abstract: The content of cementation in structured soil and hydrate in the methane hydrate-bearing sediments can influence the mechanical behaviors of the materials. Microscopically, this can be attributed to the different contents of cementation between the particles in the materials of concern. To investigate the mechanical properties of bonded particles with different contents of cementation, a series of experiments on bonded granules with different bond widths is carried out. The results show that: (1) The peak compression force decreases nonlinearly with the bond width, and is significantly affected by the aspect ratio; (2) The peak tension force decreases nearly linearly with the bond width, and trivially affected by aspect ratio; (3) The peak shear force and torsion are composed of two parts, namely bond part and frictional part, which vary in a similar way. The peak force increases first with the normal force; once after a critical stress ratio, it starts to decrease, and when the stress ratio equals 1.0, i.e., the bond material fails, the cementation no longer contributes to the peak force and the friction becomes dominant; (4) In the normal-shear-torsion tests under different bias-centroid distances, the peak force on the shear-torsion space has a ellipsoid shape.

Key words: different widths, bond character, experimental study