The mechanical characteristics of warm and ice-rich frozen sand are the key and difficult problems in frozen soil engineering. In order to study the frozen sand with different ice contents, triaxial tests at -1.5 ℃ were carried out on conventional saturated frozen sand and ice-rich frozen sand. Based on the experimental results, the effects of confining pressure and ice content on the mechanical characteristics of frozen sand are discussed. And the differences in deformation mechanisms between conventional saturated frozen sand and ice-rich frozen sand are analyzed. The results show that: the proposed method of "mixing ice particles and sand, compacting in layers, and replenishing water from below" can make ice-rich frozen sand with uniform distribution of soil particles. The strength and volumetric strain of ice-rich frozen sand differ greatly from conventional saturated frozen sand, but the stress-strain relationship and volumetric strain of ice-rich frozen sand with different ice contents are very close. The ice-rich frozen sand with 67% ice content under different confining pressure are strain-softening type; and with the increase of confining pressure, the degree of strain-softening gradually decreases, and the volumetric strain gradually transforms from volumetric dilation to volumetric contraction. The external force on conventional saturated frozen sand is shared by soil particles, ice and unfrozen water, while the external force on the ice-rich frozen sand is mainly borne directly by ice, in which the entrained soil particles indirectly affect the mechanical characteristics of ice.