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Description of different cracking processes affecting dispersive saline soil slopes subjected to the effects of frost and consequences for the stability of low slopes

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Abstract

To deal with soil salinisation and improve ecosystems in western Jilin Province, the local government initiated water diversion projects to wash the salinised lands. The slopes of many water channels were found to be damaged. This has motivated the study of failure mechanism of saline soil slopes to provide a theoretical basis for the treatment of slopes.

In this study, it was found that the soil in the study area had properties of soda saline soil, seasonally frozen soil, dispersive soil, and fissured soil. Form field investigations, it was found that owing to geological and environmental factors, cracks develop on soil slopes and are mainly freeze-heave cracks, scouring cracks, suffosion cracks, and unloading cracks. First, periodic freeze–thaw cycles led to the development of frost-heave cracks on the slope and induced the formation of fissured soil. Next, under precipitation, soil slope experienced erosion damage, forming scouring cracks in the direction perpendicular to channel. In addition, because the study area is consisted of soda saline soil, which contains soluble carbonate salts with a relatively high content of Na+, suffosion occurred due to water seepage, forming suffosion cracks. Moreover, along with the completion of channel construction and injection of water, the toe of slope was prone to collapse owing to the long-term soak, this triggered the unloading of the slope toe and the development of unloading cracks in the direction parallel to the strike of channel. Eventually, the slope experienced tensile failure and creep-cracking failure under the effect of multi-environmental fields.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the Key Program of International (Regional) Cooperation and Exchange of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41820104001), the State Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41430642), and the Special Fund for Major Scientific Instruments of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41627801).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Construction Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, 130026, China

    Mengxia Han, Qing Wang, Yan Han & Jiejie Shen

  2. Water Conservancy and Hydropower Survey and Design Institute of Jilin Province, Changchun, 130021, China

    Huicheng Fu

  3. China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, Beijing, 100032, China

    Yaowu Liu

Authors
  1. Mengxia Han
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  2. Qing Wang
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  3. Yan Han
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  4. Huicheng Fu
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  5. Jiejie Shen
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  6. Yaowu Liu
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Contributions

Mengxia Han contributed to the manuscript writing. Qing Wang proposed the main structure of this study. Yaowu Liu, Jiejie Shen, Yan Han, and Huicheng Fu provided useful advice and revised the manuscript. All of the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qing Wang.

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Han, M., Wang, Q., Han, Y. et al. Description of different cracking processes affecting dispersive saline soil slopes subjected to the effects of frost and consequences for the stability of low slopes. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 75 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02570-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02570-w

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