Technical Papers
Aug 29, 2019

Effects of Drying-Wetting Cycles on Durability of Carbonated Reactive Magnesia-Admixed Clayey Soil

Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 31, Issue 11

Abstract

The durability of CO2-carbonated reactive magnesia (MgO)-admixed clayey soils against drying-wetting cycles has not been well understood now despite the fact that the engineering properties of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed soils have been extensively investigated in previous studies. This paper presents the details of a study of the effects of drying-wetting (D-W) cycles on the physical, chemical, mechanical, and microstructural properties of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed clayey soils, and ordinary portland cement (PC)-stabilized soils used as a control sample for comparison. The results indicate that compared with PC-stabilized soils, the soundness ranks and pH of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed clayey soils have varying degrees of decline after drying-wetting cycles and CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed clay has a higher mass change ratio and water content than carbonated MgO-admixed silty clay. The residual strength ratios of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed and PC-stabilized clay were 0.35 and 0.65, respectively, whereas the residual strength of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed silty clay still was higher than that of PC-stabilized silty clay, although their residual strength ratios both were above 0.8. The elasticity modulus of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed clay decreased from 260 to 100 MPa after one drying-wetting cycle and was less than that of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed silty clay (400  MPa), showing weaker and better durability against drying-wetting cycles of CO2-carbonated MgO-admixed clay and of silty clay, respectively. Microstructural analyses confirmed the physical, chemical, and mechanical results.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (18KJB560012), the Youth Science and Technology Innovation Fund of Nanjing Forestry University (CX2018005), the High-Level Talent Research Fund of Nanjing Forestry University (GXL2018028), the Science and Technology Project of Jiangsu Traffic Engineering Construction Bureau (2018T01), the Basic Research Project of Central University (2242019k30039), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41330641), and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Science and Technology Project Plan (2018-K7-013).

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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 31Issue 11November 2019

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Received: Jul 23, 2018
Accepted: Jun 5, 2019
Published online: Aug 29, 2019
Published in print: Nov 1, 2019
Discussion open until: Jan 29, 2020

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Lecturer, School of Civil Engineering, Nanjing Forestry Univ., Nanjing 210037, China; Ph.D. Graduate, Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Southeast Univ., Nanjing 210096, China (corresponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1667-1733. Email: [email protected]
Song-Yu Liu, M.ASCE [email protected]
Professor, Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Southeast Univ., Nanjing 210096, China. Email: [email protected]
Master Graduate, Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Southeast Univ., Nanjing 210096, China. Email: [email protected]

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