A significant amount of experience has been accumulated through years of research and development in characterizing the mechanical properties of gravel materials. However, due to deficiencies of experimental procedures and the scattering nature of test results, there are many controversial issues related to the fundamental mechanical behavior as well as practical applications of gravelly soils. This paper summarizes current domestic and overseas development efforts in laboratory and in-situ experiments on gravelly soils. Possibilities of applying these experiments in engineering practice and their future development are recommended to our peers for their reference.