Experimental Study of the Thixotropic Strength Recovery and Microstructural Evolution of Marine Clays
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 8
Abstract
Thixotropy is a very important and unique property of soft clay in engineering, which has been drawing more and more attention in recent years. This study investigated the thixotropic strength recovery of representative marine clays in different sites of offshore China. The microstructure changes of clay during thixotropy were observed using scanning electron microscopy, and then related microscopic characteristics were analyzed. Probability entropy, , is proposed as a new indicator based on the statistics of the alteration of diameter and orientation of particles or aggregates. The results show that thixotropy had significant effect on the strength increase for all the offshore Chinese clays that were tested, but their strength regain with time varied between the different sites. Some good correlations were developed between the thixotropy strength ratio and index parameters, particularly for water content, plasticity index, liquidity index, and sensitivity. The microstructural evolution of the clay tested during thixotropy was characterized by the change in both the diameter and the arrangement of particles or aggregates. The probability entropy was proved to quantitatively describe and analyze the microstructural evolution during thixotropy of clay, and its value increases with time. This new indicator could help to provide deeper insight into the thixotropic mechanism of clay.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by NGI research project “Thixotropy and set-up effect for marine clays,” the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51890912, 51879035, and 51909249), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation (LQ19E090001), and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2021M700672). The first author acknowledges the financial support from the China Scholarship Council. The authors appreciate the review of the paper by NGI staff member David Moellenbeck.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 8 • August 2022
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© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: May 20, 2021
Accepted: Mar 30, 2022
Published online: May 24, 2022
Published in print: Aug 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Oct 24, 2022
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- Ning Wang, Yubin Ren, Gang Yang, Anyuan Sun, Qing Yang, Experimental investigation on the thixotropic effect on the mechanical recovery characteristics of clay–structure interface, Marine Georesources & Geotechnology, 10.1080/1064119X.2022.2144558, (1-11), (2022).