Abstract:The creep characteristics of frozen Lanzhou fine-sand and the impact of load vibration frequency on creep strain and creep failure are examined through a series of creep tests with different vibration frequencies. The tests illustrate that both creep strain and creep strain rate are influenced by the frequency of vibrating load,in particular,by higher frequencies. When the stress amplitude of the load has a large value,the load puts more impact on the creep stain and its rate than frequency does. When the stress amplitude of the load becomes small,the impact of the vibration frequency of the load has to be taken into account. With the increase of the frequency,the failure time decreases. The failure strain of frozen Lanzhou fine-sand is relatively small under this test condition,varying from 2.8% to 5.1%. As frequency increases,the failure strain presents a decreasing trend on the whole,though it fluctuates during those processes. With a constant vibrating load,the minimum creep strain rate varies within a small range in response to frequency increment. However,the minimum creep strain rate would be in different orders of magnitude when the soils bear various maximum vibrating loads. The test shows that the minimum creep strain rates vary from 2.2×10-5 to 4.2×10-5 s-1 with a maximal load of 4.5 MPa,while 2.9×10-6 s-1 to 6.8×10-6 with 3.0 MPa. When the frequency of the vibrating load varies,failure vibration time reacts in a non-monotonic manner. There exists a critical frequency under which the failure vibration time reaches to its maximum.