Effects of Drying and Soil-Base Interface on the Behavior of an Expansive Soil Mixture

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 38 - Trang 4637-4649 - 2020
Jumanah Hajjat1,2, Duaa Al-Jeznawi2,3, Marcelo Sánchez2, Guillermo Avila4
1Department of Engineering Technology & Industrial Distribution, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
2Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
3Al-Nahrain university, Baghdad, Iraq
4Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

Tóm tắt

Expansive soils exhibit complex behavior associated with significant volume changes triggered by moisture variations induced by changes in environmental conditions. This type of process impacts on soil properties, such as shear strength, stiffness, and permeability. Also, cracks generally develop upon desiccation. There are still several gaps in the current knowledge in this area, particularly in relation to the factors that affect the shear strength of soils and control the formation of drying cracks. This paper focuses on the impact of some of these factors on crack formation and shear strength of an expansive soil mixture made up of 75% kaolin and 25% bentonite, % by mass. Three factors were considered in this research; soil structures (associated with different sample preparation methods), initial saturation, and textures at soil-base interface. Two laboratory series consisting of desiccation plate and soil-base interface shear tests were conducted. For each series, three types of soil specimens were prepared considering different preparation methods (with the associated different soil structures) and initial saturation conditions namely; slurries, fully-saturated compacted and unsaturated compacted specimens. Soil-base interface shear strengths were determined using four different interface textures; grooves oriented perpendicular to shear direction, spiral (circular) indentations, grooves aligned parallel to the shear direction, and smooth surface. For the desiccation plate tests, two types of textures were adopted for the plate-base, namely, circular indentations and smooth to study constrained and free shrinkage conditions, respectively. Results of desiccation tests revealed that cracks developed in the constrained plate (e.g., with circular indentations), whereas no cracks were observed under free displacements conditions (e.g., smooth surface). The direct shear tests revealed that the soil-base interface shear strength is strongly affected by the specimen moisture, soil structure and the direction of the shearing  respect to the grooves orientation. For the three set of experiments conducted (i.e., slurry, compacted-saturated, compacted-unsaturated), the highest strength was found for the surface with groove oriented perpendicular to shear direction and the lowest one for the smooth plate. The shear strength associated with the circular-grooves base is in-between those ones observed for the plate with grooves oriented perpendicular and parallel to the shear direction.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Albercht BA, Benson CH (2001) Effect of desiccation on compacted natural clay. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 67(1):67–75. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241 Amarasiri A, Kodikara J, Costa S (2011) Numerical modelling of desiccation cracking. Int J Numer Anal Methods Geomech 35:82–96 ASTM (2005) Soil and rock (I). D 420–D 5611, West Conshohocken, PA Atique A, Sánchez M, Romero E (2009) Investigation of crack desiccation in soil from a flood protection embankment. CRC Press, pp 413–418 Ayad R, Soulié M, Konrad J (1997) Desiccation of a sensitive clay: application of the model CRACK. Can Geotech J 34:943–951 Boynton SS, Daniel DE (1985) Hydraulic conductivity tests on compacted clay. ASCE J Geotech Eng 111(4):465–478 Corte A, Higashi A (1960) Experimental research on desiccation cracks in soil. U.S. Army Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment, Hanover, N.H. Research report 66 Daniel DE, Wu YK (1993) Compacted clay liners and covers for arid sites. J Geotech Eng ASCE 119(2):223–237 El Mountassir G, Sánchez M, Romero E (2014) An experimental study on the compaction and collapsible behaviour of a flood defence embankment fill. Eng Geol 179:132–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2014.06.023 Greve A, Andersen M, Acworth M (2010) Investigations of soil cracking and preferential flow in a weighing lysimeter filled with cracking clay soil. J Geotech GeoEnviron Eng 393:105–113 Greve A, Andersen M, Acworth R (2012) Monitoring the transition from preferential to matrix flow in cracking clay soil through changes in electrical anisotropy. Geoderma 179–180:46–52 Gui YL, Hu W, Zhao ZY, Zhu X (2018) Numerical modelling of a field soil desiccation test using a cohesive fracture model with Voronoi tessellations. Acta Geotech 13:87–102 Hajjat J, Sánchez M, Avila G (2017) Unsaturated and saturated soil-structure interface effect on cracking behavior of soil. PanAm unsaturated soils 2017: swell-shrink and tropical soils. GSP 303:371–378. https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784481707.037 Hamid T, Miller G (2009) Shear strength of unsaturated soil interfaces. Can Geotech J 46:595–606 ImageJ (2019) User manual and instructions. https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/. 01/01/Accessed 01 May 2019 Kodikara JK, Choi X (2006) In: Miller GA, Zapata CE, Houston SL, Fredlund DG (eds) Unsaturated soils, vol 2. ASCE Geotechnical Special Publication. Simplified analytical model for desiccation cracking of clay layers in laboratory tests, pp 2558–2567 Konrad JM, Ayad R (1997) Desiccation of a sensitive clay: field experimental observations. Can Geotech J 34(6):929–942. https://doi.org/10.1139/cgj-34-6-929 Lakshmikantha M, Prat P, Ledesma A (2009) Image analysis for the quantification of a developing crack network on a drying soil. Geotech Test J 32(6):505–515 Lloret A, Ledesma A, Rodriguez R, Sánchez M, Olivella S, Suriol J (1998) Crack initiation in drying soils. In: Second international conference on unsaturated soils. Beijing, China. Aug. 1998 Louati F, Houcem T, Jamei M (2018) Unsaturated permeability prediction using natural evaporation method in cracked clay. In Proceedings of the 7th international conference on unsaturated soils (2018), Hong Kong, China Manzoli O, Sánchez M, Maedo M, Hajjat J, Guimarães L (2018) An orthotropic FE interface damage model for simulating drying processes in porous materials. Acta Geotech. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-017-0608-3 McBrayer M, Mauldon M, Drumm E (1997) Infiltration tests on fractured compacted clay. J Geotech GeoEnviron Eng. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)1090-0241(1997)123:5(469) Menson S, Song X (2019) Coupled analysis of desiccation cracking in unsaturated soils through a non-local mathematical formulation. Geosciences 9:428. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9100428 Miller C, Mi H, Yesiller N (1998) Experimental analysis of desiccation crack propagation in clay liners. J Am Water Resour Assoc 34(3):677–686. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.1998.tb00964.x Miller GA, Hassanikhah A, Varsei M (2015) Desiccation crack depth and tensile strength in compacted soil. Unsaturated soil mechanics—from theory to practice. In: Proc., 6th Asia Pacific conf. on unsaturated soils, CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL Morris PH, Graham J, Williams DJ (1992) Cracking in drying soils. Can Geotech J 29:263–277 Nahlawi H, Kodikara J (2006) Laboratory experiments on desiccation cracking of thin soil layers. Geotech Geol Eng 24(6):1641–1664 Omidi G, Thomas J, Brown K (1996) Effect of desiccation cracking on the hydraulic conductivity of a compacted clay liner. Water Air Soil Pollution 89:91–103 Péron H, Hueckel T, Laloui L (2009a) Fundamentals of desiccation cracking of fine-grained soils: experimental characterization and mechanisms identification. Can Geotech J 46:1177–1201 Péron H, Laloui L, Hueckel T, Hu L (2009b) Desiccation cracking of soils. Eur J Environ Civ Eng 13:869–888 Rayhani MHT, Yanful EK, Fakher A (2008) Physical modeling of desiccation cracking in plastic soils. Eng Geol 97:25–31 Rodríguez R, Sánchez M, Lloret A, Ledesma A (2007) Experimental and numerical analysis of a mining waste desiccation. Can Geotech J 44:644–658 Sánchez M, Atique A, Kim S, Romero E, Zielinski M (2013) Exploring desiccation cracks in soils using a 2D profile laser device. Acta Geotech 8:583–596. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-013-0272-1 Sánchez M, Manzoli O, Guimarães L (2014) Modeling 3-D desiccation soil crack networks using a mesh fragmentation technique. Comput Geotech 62:27–39 Shin H, Santamarina JC (2011) Desiccation cracks in saturated fine-grained soils: particle-level phenomena and effective-stress analysis. Géotechnique 61(11):961–972. https://doi.org/10.1680/geot.8.P.012 Tang C, Cui Y, Shi B, Tang A, Liu C (2011a) Dessication and cracking behaviour of clay layer from slurry state under wetting-drying cycles. Geoderma 166(1):111–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2011.07.018 Tang S, Shi B, Liu C, Suo B, Gao L (2011b) Experimental characterization of shrinkage and desiccation cracking in thin clay layer. Appl Clay Sci 52:69–77 Tang CS, Shi B, Cui YJ, Liu C, Gu K (2012) Desiccation cracking behavior of polypropylene fiber reinforced clayey soil. Can Geotech J 49(9):1088–1101 Tang C, Wang D, Shi B, Li J (2016) Effect of wetting-drying cycles on profile mechanical behavior of soils with different initial conditions. CATENA 139:105–116 Tollenaar RN, van Paassen LA, Jommi C (2017) Observations on the desiccation and cracking of clay layers. Eng Geol 230:23–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enggeo.2017.08.022 Trabelsi H, Jamei M, Zenzri H, Olivella S (2012) Crack patterns in clayey soils: experiments and modeling. Int J Numer Anal Methods Geomech 36(11):1410–1433 Varsei M, Miller G, Hassanikhah A (2016) Novel approach to measuring tensile strength of compacted clayey soil during desiccation. Int J Geomech 16(6):1 Yesiller N, Miller C, Inci G, Yaldo K (2000) Desiccation and cracking behavior of three compacted landfill liner soils. Eng Geol 57:105–121 Yoshida S, Adachi K (2004) Numerical analysis of crack generation in saturated deformable soil under row-planted vegetation. Geoderma 120:63–74 Zhang Z, Zhou H, Zhao Q, Lin H, Peng X (2014) Characteristics of cracks in two paddy soils and their impacts on preferential flow. Geoderma 228–229:114–121 Zhang Y, Ye WM, Chen B, Chen YG, Ye B (2016) Desiccation of NaCl-contaminated soil of earthen heritages in the site of Yar City, northwest China. Appl Clay Sci 124:1–10 Zielinski M, Sanchez M, Romero E, Alvis A (2014) Precise observation of soil surface curling. Geoderma 226–227:85–93