Effects of Hydraulic Loading History on Suffusion Susceptibility of Cohesionless Soils
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 7
Abstract
Suffusion is a selective erosion of fine particles under the effect of seepage flow within the matrix of coarser particles. This complex phenomenon appears as a combination of three processes: detachment, transport, and possible filtration of finer fraction. It can induce a change in particle size distribution, porosity, and hydraulic conductivity of the material. With the objective to characterize suffusion susceptibility, downward seepage flow tests were conducted. Four different cohesionless soils were tested under hydraulic-gradient controlled conditions or under flow-rate controlled conditions. This study shows the significant effect of hydraulic loading history on the value of critical hydraulic gradient. Moreover, the method characterizing the erosion susceptibility based on rate of erosion does not lead to a unique characterization of suffusion process for different types of hydraulic loading. The new analysis is based on energy expended by the seepage flow and the cumulative eroded dry mass. The results demonstrate that this approach is more effective to characterize suffusion susceptibility for cohesionless soils.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Indonesian Directorate General of Higher Education (DIKTI), the Sultan Agung Islamic University Indonesia, the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam, the University of Danang Vietnam, and the company IMSRN France for providing financial support for this work.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 7 • July 2017
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 11, 2015
Accepted: Nov 8, 2016
Published ahead of print: Mar 10, 2017
Published online: Mar 11, 2017
Published in print: Jul 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Aug 11, 2017
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