Experimental Study on Salt Expansion Characteristics of Coarse-Grained Sulfate Soils
Publication: Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 34, Issue 2
Abstract
In this paper, salt expansion tests were conducted on coarse-grained sulfate soils to investigate salt expansion characteristics. The experimental results indicate that the formation and growth of salt crystals are influenced by environmental temperature and humidity; during the cooling process, the specimen expands due to the growth of salt and ice crystals. The heave in the positive temperature range increases with increasing sulfate content, while the heave in the negative temperature range reaches a peak value when the salt content varies between 0.4% and 0.7%, indicating that the combined effect of precipitation and freezing contributes to significant volumetric expansion. The initial precipitation temperature increases with increasing pore solution concentration before it reaches 30°C. The freezing point is influenced by soil particles, pore solution concentration, and initial water content. The freezing point first decreases with increasing salt content and tends to be stable afterward when the water content is relatively high. However, the freezing point exhibits a continuous decreasing tendency if salt crystal precipitation occurs before freezing. An empirical model is proposed to predict the salt heave ratio in the positive temperature range based on salt crystal volume changes, and the relationship between the precipitation and freezing processes in the negative temperature range is examined.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Technology Research and Development Program of China Railway (Grant No. 2017G002-S), the State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering (Grant No. SKLFSE201706), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41731281). The authors sincerely thank Dr. Tengfei Wang for his help in language polishing and Dr. Muge Elif Orakoglu Firat in preparing a revised paper.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- a and b
- empirical parameters defining x versus T;
- c and c1
- mass ratio of solute to solvent (%);
- c0
- mass ratio of Na2SO4 to H2O in soil (%);
- , and
- solubility of sodium sulfate in water (% or g/100g H2O);
- k
- a parameter defining the mass ratio of Na2SO4 to H2O in mirabilite;
- M(Na2SO4), M(H2O)
- relative molecular mass of Na2SO4 and H2O, respectively;
- ms and mw
- initial mass of salt and water in soil, respectively (g);
- and
- mass of sodium and H2O in mirabilite, respectively (g);
- and
- mass of salt and water in pore solution, respectively (g);
- n1, n2, and n3
- empirical parameters defining volume ec versus e;
- s
- salt content (%);
- T, T0, T1, T2, T3, and T4
- temperature (°C);
- Tf
- freezing temperature (°C);
- Tp
- initial precipitation temperature (°C);
- V0, Vc
- soil initial volume and salt crystal volume, respectively (cm3);
- w
- water content (%);
- x
- mole fraction of sodium sulfate in solution;
- ɛc
- volume ratio of crystals to soil;
- ɛv
- heave ratio of soil specimen (%);
- and
- total heave ratio over the positive and negative temperature ranges, respectively (%); and
- ρd
- dry density (g/cm3).
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Published In
Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 34 • Issue 2 • June 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 24, 2019
Accepted: Oct 25, 2019
Published online: Mar 18, 2020
Published in print: Jun 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Aug 18, 2020
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