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Quantitative analysis for the effect of microstructure on the mechanical strength of frozen silty clay with different contents of sodium sulfate

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Abstract

Microstructural transformation is known substantially to be the reason for the differences in mechanical behavior and the failure mechanism of saline soil. The mechanical strength of frozen saline soil decreases by 19.0% initially and then increases by 49.3% with the increasing mass content of sodium sulfate, with the threshold value of 1.5%. To explain the mechanism of this phenomenon, mercury intrusion porosity and scanning electron microscope were adopted to obtain the pore size distributions and microstructural characteristics of silty clay with different mass contents of sodium sulfate at 0.0, 1.5, 2.5 and 5.0%, respectively. The microstructural parameters were calculated by the Image-Pro Plus software based on the threshold of 75 and magnification of 1000× and 2000×. The porosity increases firstly and reduces with the rising salt content, and the fractal dimension is affected slightly ranging from 1.18 to 1.23. As the salt content increases from 0.0 to 1.5%, salts dissolve completely and the thickness of liquid film increases, so does the pore volume, and the friction of soil particles and the mechanical strength decreases. When the salt content is beyond the threshold value, the solution in soil is supersaturated, and salts crystallize and fill the pores and deduce the pore volume. The increasing interlocking abilities between crystals and particles enhance the mechanical strength of frozen saline soil. The results can provide a theoretical guidance to predict the frost and salt heave of frozen saline soil engineering.

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Acknowledgements

The authors greatly appreciate the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41230630, 41471063, 41601074), Key Research Projects of the Frontier Sciences of Chinese Academy of Sciences (QYZDY-SSW-DQC015), the Foundation for Excellent Youth Scholars of Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Y451231001) and the 100-Talent Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Granted to Dr. Mingyi Zhang).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Zhemin You, Yuanming Lai, Mingyi Zhang & Enlong Liu

  2. College of Water Resource and Hydropower, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Enlong Liu

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  1. Zhemin You
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  2. Yuanming Lai
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  3. Mingyi Zhang
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  4. Enlong Liu
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Correspondence to Mingyi Zhang.

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You, Z., Lai, Y., Zhang, M. et al. Quantitative analysis for the effect of microstructure on the mechanical strength of frozen silty clay with different contents of sodium sulfate. Environ Earth Sci 76, 143 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-017-6454-7

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