A series of drained cubical triaxial tests was performed to investigate the finfluence of the intermediate principal stress on the deformation and strength characteristics of sand. Test results showed that the strength of sand as represented by the friction angle increased from triaxial compression condition (b:0) with increasing magnitude of the intermediate principal stress until the vus of b reached 0.75, land it decreased slightly with closing to b= 1. Also it was found that the projection of the plastic strain increment vector on the octahedral plane was perpendicular to the trace of the failure surface on that plane. The prediction by the isotropic single hardening model sllowed good coinidence with experimental results.