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Insight into the mechanism of microbially induced carbonate precipitation treatment of bio-improved calcareous sand particles

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Abstract

The use of the calcareous soil as a backfill material in ocean constructions faces pervasive challenges due to the significant rate of particle fracture. To meet the requirements of marine ecological protection, a bio-cementing technique, microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP), has emerged as a green method for improving the soil properties of calcareous sands. This paper presents a detailed study on the effect of MICP on the fracture behaviours of calcareous particles and its treating mechanism at microscopic scale level. First, individual calcareous and dolomite particles were treated by MICP for different numbers of rounds. The increase ratio of the particle mass and the filling degree of the intra-particle pores were then measured to evaluate the treatment effect of MICP on individual sand particles. Combining with scanning electron microscopy measurements of the evolution of the particle morphology and internal microstructures of the calcareous particles, the intra-particle pore filling effect as well as the surface coating effect induced by MICP treatment were directly observed. Finally, a series of single-particle crushing tests indicated that the intra-particle pore filling effect of MICP rather than the surface coating effect played the dominant role in improving the fracture pattern and fracture strength of calcareous sand particles.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Research Grants 41877233, 42072298 and 41931286 from the National Natural Science Foundation of China and a General Research Fund Grant (No. CityU 11207321) from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong SAR.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Bo Zhou, Xing Zhang, Huabin Wang & Jiawei Shen

  2. Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Jianfeng Wang

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  1. Bo Zhou
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  2. Xing Zhang
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Correspondence to Bo Zhou.

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Appendix: Calculation of convex hull’s volume

Appendix: Calculation of convex hull’s volume

A convex hull is defined as the minimal region containing all line segments consisting of any two points inside. An intrinsic function in Python3.8 was used to generate the convex hull, and calculate its volume Vcon of a given particle, as illustrated in Fig. 4. An oriented bounding box (OBB) was obtained based on a principal component analysis (PCA) of all the voxels belonging to the particle volume. The dimensions of the particle a, b and c are the length, width and height of OBB. Figure 15 demonstrates the original morphology and convex hull of 30 calcareous particles. Figure 16 shows the correlation between the convex hull’s volume (Vcon) and the bound box’s volume (Vbox) for all the particles. A well linear relationship with a slope of 0.3 was identified between these two parameters. In practical experiments, a vernier caliper was used to measure the dimensions a, b and c of the tested particle, and a uniform empirical equation Vcon = 0.3abc was adopted to approximately calculate its convex hull’s volume.

Fig. 15
figure 15

Morphology and convex hull of 30 calcareous particles

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Fig. 16
figure 16

Relationship between Vcon and Vbox

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Zhou, B., Zhang, X., Wang, J. et al. Insight into the mechanism of microbially induced carbonate precipitation treatment of bio-improved calcareous sand particles. Acta Geotech. 18, 985–999 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01625-2

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