A Review on Effect of Temperature Change on Mechanical Parameters of Fine Soils

Temperature change in soils and its possible effects date back to 20th century where temperature difference between laboratory and field for sampling made researchers interested in this topic. Due to development of technology and industry nowadays, new engineering applications such as nuclear waste disposal, oil extraction and pipelines, geothermal structures etc. have turned temperature change in soils to one of the high trending research topics where suitable knowledge of thermal effects on soils is required. For this purpose, it is tried at first to highlight the importance of temperature effect on geotechnical design by some examples and possible effect of temperature change on mechanical properties of fine soils are reviewed afterward. Investigation on results from literature proved that temperature change could alter some strength and consolidation parameters of fine soils. Different factors are proposed to be responsible for such thermally induced changes in mechanical parameters, however, existing explanations and comments from literature are diverse and not fully understood yet. In order to fill this gap, it is tried to find connections between different mechanical parameters and their behavior toward temperature change and possibly find a unified approach and factor to explain the mechanism responsible for thermally induced changes in mechanical parameters of fine soils. Finally, at the end, it is concluded that effect of temperature on structural rearrangement of solid particles could be a promising factor to connect the responses of different mechanical parameters toward temperature change.