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Effect of hydration on mechanical properties and microstructure of expansive soil

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Abstract

The hygroscopic swelling properties of expansive soils usually present significant challenges to engineered structures. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the effect of hydration on the mechanical properties and microstructure. The influence of different initial conditions on the swelling pressure was analyzed by the three-dimensional expansion test device, and the effect of hydration on the microstructure of expansive soil was studied by the MIP method. The results show that: the swelling pressure decreases with the increase of the initial moisture content and increases with the increase of the dry density. The average swelling pressure development rate increases with increasing dry density and decreases with increasing initial moisture content. The anisotropy coefficient range of soil is 0.525–0.904. Hydration causes the collapse of macropores between the aggregates, the increase in the number of intra-aggregate pores, and the gradual decrease in total volume, and the microscopic pore structure of the specimen tends to be uniform. The dominant values corresponding to the specimen with a dry density of 1.5 cm3 changed from 50–60 nm to 20–30 nm, and 10,000–11,000 nm to 5000–6000 nm. The dominant values corresponding to the specimen with a dry density of 1.7 cm3 also decreased slightly. Therefore, the smaller the dry density, the greater the effect of hydration on the microstructure of the internal pores of the specimen.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42172308, 52108366 and 52008122) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020M672557).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Ze-Cheng Chi, Zhang-Jun Dai & Shan-Xiong Chen

  2. Key Laboratory of Geological Survey and Evaluation of Ministry of Education, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Ze-Cheng Chi

  3. Anhui Transport Consulting and Design Institute CO., LTD, Hefei, 230088, China

    Fan-Fan Li

  4. Guangdong Research Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower, Guangzhou, 510610, China

    Wei Wang

  5. School of Civil Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, China

    Jian-Bin Li

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Correspondence to Zhang-Jun Dai.

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Chi, ZC., Dai, ZJ., Chen, SX. et al. Effect of hydration on mechanical properties and microstructure of expansive soil. Environ Earth Sci 82, 133 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-10837-y

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