It is universally known that residual soils behave very differently from sedimentary soils. While the latter is widely known as cross-anisotropic, little is known regarding the strength anisotropy of residual soils. This study presents how the inherent anisotropy affects the strength of natural granite residual soils under generalized conditions, where intact specimens were carefully prepared and sheared under triaxial compression, extension, simple shear, and hollow cylinder torsional shear tests. The strength of natural residual soil, in terms of ultimate stress ratio M and undrained shear strength Su, is found to be significantly anisotropic in a different way from normally consolidated clays with the maximum strength obtained under triaxial compression and the minimum under simple shear or at intermediate principal stress direction. As a result, the existing method failed to measure the anisotropy degree of the studied soil. Two parameters were proposed accordingly to quantify the anisotropic strength under general conditions, taking the special strength anisotropy pattern and cohesive-frictional nature of GRS into account. The proposed parameters enable the direct comparison of strength anisotropy among soils. This study serves as a data set to better understand residual soils regarding their anisotropic behaviors under generalized conditions. Although specific to granite residual soils in China, this study is expected to be more widely applicable to other weathered geomaterials.
Focusing on the two natural gas exploration geological problems with abundant source of oil cracking gas in the late stage and the sealing condition of the oil cracking gas reservoir, the kinetics of oil cracking gas and the evaluation parameters of gas cap rock are adopted to the study on the natural gas accumulation conditions in the Tadong area. Both the study on the kinetics of oil cracking gas and the statistical results of reservoir bitumen reveal that the geological formation of oil cracking gas in the Tadong area is located in the top of Cambrian. Two kinds of oil cracking gas geological models at least, namely well Mandong-1’s early rapid generation model (Middle Ordovician-end Silurian) and peak cracking model (with the natural gas conversion rate >90%), namely well Yingnan-2’s two-stage generation model of oil cracking gas, have been set up. The oil cracking gas of Yingnan-2 in the late stage is very significant in the evaluation of natural gas exploration in the Tadong area. The evaluation results of the cap rock show that the microscopic parameters of cap rock from the lower assemblage of Cambrian-Ordovician are better than those from the upper assemblage. The former has strong capillary sealing ability and higher cap rock breakthrough pressure than the upper assemblage, with strong sealing ability, so that natural gas dissipates mainly by diffusion. According to the above investigations, the lower assemblage Cambrian-Ordovician natural gas of Kongquehe slope, Tadong low uplift and Yingjisu depression in the Tadong area prospects well.