scholarly journals Desiccation crack in lime-treated silty clay: Experimental evaluation and constitutive interpretation

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 11002
Author(s):  
Nicolas Poncelet ◽  
Bertrand François

The present work investigates the desiccation effects on a lime-treated clayey silt. Original experimental techniques have been developed to control suction conditions (with osmotic technique) and to track volume variations and cracks occurrence upon drying. Free and constrained dryings are performed to evaluate the shrinkage potential (for free drying) and the conditions of desiccation crack triggering (upon constrained drying). Also, indirect tensile tests and uniaxial compression tests are carried out to evaluate the strength at various suctions. Those investigations have been performed on natural and lime-treated clayey silt in order to emphasis the role of the lime treatment in the triggering and/or mitigation of the cracking process. At the end, generalized effective stress framework with an effective stress parameter χ calibrated according to a power law is used to provide a constitutive interpretation of the occurrence of desiccation cracks in relation with the water retention properties, the soil stiffness, the tensile strength and the geometrical constraints of the soil samples. For the used compacted materials, it is demonstrated that the lime treatment postpones the occurrence of desiccation cracks and so, plays a favourable role in the stabilization of soft soils subject to drying.

2011 ◽  
Vol 378-379 ◽  
pp. 780-784
Author(s):  
Olivier Plé ◽  
Thi Ngoc Hà Lê ◽  
Murad S. AbuAisha

Landfills come with a cover barrier which includes a compacted silty clay liner essential to safety on site. However this barrier encounters problems, especially those related to the differential settlement, which may cause stress in the clay layer leading to the development of cracks. Generally speaking, tensile stress damage and shearing are observed on the cap cover. Due to the weak mechanical performance of the clay layer it was proposed to add polypropylene fibre reinforcement. Direct tensile tests and compression tests under low confinement were carried out on unreinforced and reinforced soils. An improvement in soil resistance and in the brittleness index of fibre-reinforced clay was characterised. The proposed solution, technically feasible, enabled an optimization of the thickness of the mineral barrier.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-88
Author(s):  
Miguel A. González-Montijo ◽  
Hildélix Soto-Toro ◽  
Cristian Rivera-Pérez ◽  
Silvia Esteves-Klomsingh ◽  
Oscar Marcelo Suárez

AbstractHistorically known for being one of the major pollutants in the world, the construction industry, always in constant advancement and development, is currently evolving towards more environmentally friendly technologies and methods. Scientists and engineers seek to develop and implement green alternatives to conventional construction materials. One of these alternatives is to introduce an abundant, hard to recycle, material that could serve as a partial aggregate replacement in masonry bricks or even in a more conventional concrete mixture. The present work studied the use of 3 different types of repurposed plastics with different constitutions and particle size distribution. Accordingly, several brick and concrete mix designs were developed to determine the practicality of using these plastics as partial aggregate replacements. After establishing proper working material ratios for each brick and concrete mix, compression tests as well as tensile tests for the concrete mixes helped determine the structural capacity of both applications. Presented results proved that structural strength can indeed be reached in a masonry unit, using up to a 43% in volume of plastic. Furthermore, a workable structural strength for concrete can be achieved at fourteen days of curing, using up to a 50% aggregate replacement. A straightforward cost assessment for brick production was produced as well as various empirical observations and recommendations concerning the feasibility of each repurposed plastic type examined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 195 ◽  
pp. 03015
Author(s):  
John Tri Hatmoko ◽  
Hendra Suryadharma

A series of experiments including unconfined compression tests, three-axial tests, compaction tests, and split tensile tests were undertaken to investigate the influence of compaction parameters on the behaviour of bagasse ash-calcium carbide residue stabilized soil. A preliminary study on soil with the addition of 4%, 6%, 8%, 10%, and 12% calcium carbide residue established that the lime fixation point (LFP) was 4%. Then 9% bagasse ash was added to soil with 4% calcium carbide residue, and the cation exchanges and pozzolanic reactions were investigated. The addition of calcium carbide residue to bagasse ash stabilized soil caused short-term changes due to cation exchange reactions, including an increase in the friction angle and cohesion in the stabilized soil. In addition, due to the short-term reaction, the maximum stiffness in three-axial tests occurred in the samples moulded with less than their optimum moisture content (OMC), whereas the peak strength occurred in the samples moulded at their OMC. After a 28-day curing period, pozzolanic reactions improved significantly the three-axial peak strength and stiffness of the stabilized soil, and the maximum three-axial shear strength and stiffness occurred in the samples prepared below their OMC.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 13155-13189
Author(s):  
S. Baram ◽  
Z. Ronen ◽  
D. Kurtzman ◽  
C. Küells ◽  
O. Dahan

Abstract. A study on water infiltration and solute transport in a clayey vadose zone underlying a dairy farm waste source was conducted to assess the impact of desiccation cracks on subsurface evaporation and salinization. The study is based on five years of continuous measurements of the temporal variation in the vadose zone water-content and on the chemical and isotopic composition of the sediment and pore-water in it. The isotopic composition of water stable isotopes (δ18O and δ2H) in water and sediment samples, from the area where desiccation crack networks prevail, indicated subsurface evaporation down to ∼3.5 m below land surface, and vertical and lateral preferential transport of water, following erratic preferential infiltration events. Chloride (Cl-) concentrations in the vadose zone pore water substantially increased with depth, evidence of deep subsurface evaporation and down flushing of concentrated solutions from the evaporation zones during preferential infiltration events. These observations led to development of a Desiccation-Crack-Induced Salinization (DCIS) conceptual model. DCIS suggests that thermally driven convective air flow in the desiccation cracks induces evaporation and salinization in relatively deep sections of the subsurface. This conceptual model supports previous conceptual models on vadose zone and groundwater salinization in fractured rock in arid environments and extends its validity to clayey soils in semi-arid environments.


2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 1533-1545 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Baram ◽  
Z. Ronen ◽  
D. Kurtzman ◽  
C. Külls ◽  
O. Dahan

Abstract. A study on water infiltration and solute transport in a clayey vadose zone underlying a dairy farm waste source was conducted to assess the impact of desiccation cracks on subsurface evaporation and salinization. The study is based on five years of continuous measurements of the temporal variation in the vadose zone water content and on the chemical and isotopic composition of the sediment and pore water in it. The isotopic composition of water stable isotopes (δ18O and δ2H) in water and sediment samples, from the area where desiccation crack networks prevail, indicated subsurface evaporation down to ~ 3.5 m below land surface, and vertical and lateral preferential transport of water, following erratic preferential infiltration events. Chloride (Cl−) concentrations in the vadose zone pore water substantially increased with depth, evidence of deep subsurface evaporation and down flushing of concentrated solutions from the evaporation zones during preferential infiltration events. These observations led to development of a desiccation-crack-induced salinization (DCIS) conceptual model. DCIS suggests that thermally driven convective air flow in the desiccation cracks induces evaporation and salinization in relatively deep sections of the subsurface. This conceptual model supports previous conceptual models on vadose zone and groundwater salinization in fractured rock in arid environments and extends its validity to clayey soils in semi-arid environments.


2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (3) ◽  
pp. 488-495
Author(s):  
T. Schenk ◽  
T. Seifert ◽  
H. Brehm

Cyclic stress-strain measurements have to be performed in order to determine the cyclic plasticity parameters of material models describing the Bauschinger effect. For thin wires, the performance of tensile tests is often not possible due to necking of the specimen on exceeding the yield stress, whereas compression tests are uncritical. This paper presents an approach to determine the cyclic plasticity parameters by performance of compression tests for wires before and after drawing. Here, a simple analogous model is used instead of finite-element (FE) simulations. This approach has been applied for two different integration time steps in order to evaluate their influence on the fit and the accuracy of the integration. It is shown that good accuracy can be obtained for the cyclic plasticity parameters. For FE simulations using larger integration time steps, large deviations have been noted. However, there the analogous model could also be adopted in order to find appropriate model parameters. In general, it is the intention of this paper to show that searching an analogous model can be a very time- and cost-saving task.


2017 ◽  
Vol 753 ◽  
pp. 285-289
Author(s):  
Paulo Jose Rocha Albuquerque ◽  
David de Carvalho

This paper presents the results of two load tests carried out in a continuous flight auger pile of 0.4 m in diameter and 12 m in length. The pile was instrumented in depth with strain gages in order to obtain the load capacity along the shaft and the tip. The load tests were carried out at the University of Campinas Experimental Site Test. The subsoil where the pile was installed is constituted by a first stratum of Silty Clay, which is porous and collapsible, of 6.5 m in thickness, followed by a stratum of residual soil of Clayey Silt up to 14 m depth. The first load test was the slow type, and a quick load test in the same pile after five days. From the results obtained with the use of instrumentation, the values for both lateral and tip load were determined in each one of test carried out in the pile studied. With these results and applying the Cambefort’s Law, it was could evaluate the evolution of the shaft friction and tip load in relation to the associated settlements, as well as the occurrence of residual load. The ultimate load obtained in the test was 960 kN and 810 kN for the first and second tests, respectively. The stress for the tip was 853 kPa and 655 kPa for the first and second tests, respectively.


2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Virgilio Damiani Bica ◽  
Luiz Antônio Bressani ◽  
Diego Vendramin ◽  
Flávia Burmeister Martins ◽  
Pedro Miguel Vaz Ferreira ◽  
...  

This paper discusses results of laboratory tests carried out with a residual soil originated from the weathering of eolian sandstone from southern Brazil. Parent rock features, like microfabric and particle bonding, are remarkably well preserved within this residual soil. Stiffness and shear strength properties were evaluated with consolidated drained (CID) and consolidated undrained (CIU) triaxial compression tests. Undisturbed specimens were tested with two different orientations between the specimen axis and bedding surfaces (i.e., parallel (δ = 0°) or perpendicular (δ = 90°)) to investigate the effect of anisotropy. When CID triaxial tests were performed with δ = 0°, the yield surface associated with the structure was much larger than when tests were performed with δ = 90°. Coincidently, CIU tests with δ = 0° showed peak shear strengths much greater than for δ = 90° at comparable test conditions. Once the peak shear strength was surpassed, CIU tests followed collapse-type effective stress paths not shown by corresponding tests with remolded specimens. A near coincidence was observed between the yield surface determined with CID tests and the envelope of collapse-type effective stress paths for δ = 0° and δ = 90°.


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