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Thermally induced volume change behavior of sand–clay mixtures

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Abstract

The deformation and strength of soils change significantly under thermal loading, which affects the safety and stability of thermal-related geotechnical infrastructures. Although laboratory tests have been performed on pure clay or sand, few studies were conducted on binary sand–clay mixtures. To enhance the understanding of the mechanisms for thermally induced volume change behavior of sand containing plastic fines, a series of drained heating tests and temperature-controlled isotropic consolidation tests were conducted. The results of the drained heating test demonstrate that the sand–clay mixtures generally exhibit plastic volumetric contraction deformation at temperatures ranging from 20 to 60 °C. The thermal volumetric contraction increases with increase in stress level or fine content. With isotropic consolidation tests, it was found that the compression curves gradually moved downward with an increase in temperature. The compression and swelling indexes change slightly with temperature variation, which can be considered independent of temperature. The yield stress of sand–clay mixtures decreases with increase in temperature, and the thermal softening phenomenon becomes more obvious with an increase in fine content. The proposed equation for yield stress accurately predicted the temperature- and fines-dependent behavior of sand–clay mixtures.

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Some or all data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support of the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51922024, 52078085 and 52008213), the Chinese Universities Scientific Fund (Grant No. 2452022121), and the Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (Grant No. cstc2019jcyjjqX0014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Water Resource and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, Shaanxi, China

    Zengchun Sun & Minqiang Meng

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Zengchun Sun, Yang Xiao & Jinquan Shi

  3. Key Laboratory of New Technology for Construction of Cities in Mountain Area, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400045, China

    Yang Xiao & Jinquan Shi

  4. School of Architecture Engineering, Neijiang Normal University, Neijiang, 641112, Sichuan, China

    Hong Liu

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  1. Zengchun Sun
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Correspondence to Yang Xiao.

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Sun, Z., Xiao, Y., Meng, M. et al. Thermally induced volume change behavior of sand–clay mixtures. Acta Geotech. 18, 2373–2388 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01744-w

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