Mechanical Behavior of Sands Treated by Microbially Induced Carbonate Precipitation
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 142, Issue 2
Abstract
The mechanical behavior of sands treated using microbially induced carbonate precipitation (MICP) has been investigated at the macroscale and the microscale. Triaxial and confined compression tests with embedded shear and compression wave (S-wave and P-wave) sensors were conducted on two MICP-treated sands, Ottawa and silica sands. Triaxial compression tests were conducted at three different confining pressures (25, 50, and 100 kPa). Tests were also performed at calcium chloride () concentrations of 0.1 and 0.3 M, resulting in specimens with average calcium carbonate () content ranging from 1.5 to 2.5% for the sand and from 1 to 1.6% for the sand. In contrast to previous research, the results of triaxial tests presented in this paper show an increase of the soil strength even at 1% calcium carbonate content. After the tests, samples taken from the specimens were utilized to measure the content and to perform analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS). The SEM and EDS images were used to assess the morphology and spatial distributions of at the microscale.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the support of the Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) Division at National Science Foundation (No. 1233566). The research team acknowledges the efforts of several undergraduate students, including Pierre Bick, Alexa Hendricks, and Yassira Alaziz, and graduate students including Hang Dong, Hankai Zhu, Suguang Xiao, and Lusu Ni. Also, the authors acknowledge the help of Dan Zeroka and Edward Tomlinson, technician, and instrumentation and system specialist, respectively, at Lehigh University’s Advanced Technology for Large Structural Systems (ATLSS) Engineering Research Center.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 142 • Issue 2 • February 2016
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© 2015 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 18, 2014
Accepted: Jun 5, 2015
Published online: Jul 28, 2015
Discussion open until: Dec 28, 2015
Published in print: Feb 1, 2016
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