Abstract
Phosphogypsum (PG) is a solid waste product of the wet-process phosphoric acid industry that accumulates in large amounts on the ground, forming PG ponds. In recent years, the amount of PG produced and discharged into ponds has increased significantly with the increase in the market demand for phosphate fertilizers. To enrich the basic knowledge of PG properties and provide basic data for the stability analysis of PG dams, a series of laboratory geotechnical tests, including permeability tests, compressibility tests, triaxial shear tests, and dynamic triaxial tests, were conducted in this study. During the preparation of the test samples, solubility and high-temperature dehydration of PG were considered. The results indicated that PG exhibits medium compressibility and medium to weak permeability characteristics. The stress-strain curves of the triaxial shear tests were divided into three typical stages: initial deformation stage, strain hardening stage, and destruction stage. With increasing dry density and consolidation confining pressure, both the shear strength and deformation modulus significantly increased. The relationship between the deformation modulus and confining pressure gradually changed from linear to logarithmic with increasing density. The liquefaction resistance curves (CSR–NL curves) of PG were expressed by power functions. With increasing dry density, the curves shifted higher and became steeper. Compared with the Hardin–Drnevich model, the Davidenkov model was found to be more suitable for describing the relationship between the dynamic shear modulus ratio and damping ratio of PG and the dynamic shear strain. Furthermore, compared with those of tailings and natural soils, the engineering mechanical properties of PG were relatively poor, which may be related to its uniform particle distribution and neat particle stacking structure.
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Data availability
The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Abbreviations
- CU:
-
triaxial consolidated-undrained test
- CSR :
-
cyclic stress ratio
- N L :
-
vibration number of failures
- ρ d :
-
dry density
- ρ :
-
wet density
- D 50 :
-
average particle size
- C u :
-
non-uniform coefficient
- C c :
-
curvature coefficient
- e :
-
void ratio
- p :
-
vertical pressure
- ε :
-
axial strain
- k :
-
permeability coefficient
- a v :
-
compression coefficient
- E s :
-
compression modulus
- E :
-
deformation modulus
- σ p :
-
peak stress
- c (c′):
-
total cohesion (effective cohesion)
- φ (φ′):
-
total internal friction angle (effective internal friction angle)
- σ′ 0 :
-
mean effective confining pressure
- σ 1, σ 3 :
-
axial and radial consolidation pressure
- σ d :
-
dynamic stress
- μ 0 :
-
initial pore water pressure
- τ d :
-
dynamic shear stress
- γ d :
-
dynamic shear strain
- A loop :
-
area of the enclosed hysteresis loop
- A Δ :
-
area of the triangle under the line connecting the origin to the maximum amplitude point
- G d :
-
dynamic shear modulus
- Λ :
-
damping ratio
- G d0 (G dmax):
-
initial dynamic shear modulus (maximum dynamic shear modulus)
- V s :
-
shearing wave velocity
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Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful to editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions and thank Prof. Jiayi Shen for proof-reading the grammar and expression of the manuscript.
Funding
This study was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0804609), National Natural Science Foundation of China (51804051), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (cstc2019jcyj-bshX0022), and Chongqing Special Postdoctoral Science Foundation (XmT2018017).
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TL designed and carried out the study and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. WW reviewed the rationality of the test data, revised the manuscript, and provided the funding support. ZW gives input for the structure of the manuscript as well as scientific advice and provided the funding support. YY interpreted the test data and proof-read the manuscript. GC helped to operate experimental equipment and demonstrated the feasibility of the scheme. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Lu, T., Wang, W., Wei, Z. et al. Experimental study on static and dynamic mechanical properties of phosphogypsum. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 17468–17481 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12148-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12148-2