Generalized Equation for Soil Shrinkage Curve
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VIEW THE REPLYPublication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 144, Issue 8
Abstract
The soil shrinkage curve (SSC) defines a constitutive relationship between soil volume and water content under drying conditions. Nearly all work to date considers a zero volume shrinkage for water content below a certain value such as shrinkage limit, which contradicts some recent experimental evidence of pervasive nonzero shrinkage for clayey soils. This paper uses a soil-water retention (SWR)-based conception to theorize such nonzero shrinkage behavior by considering the mechanical effect of capillary and adsorptive SWR mechanisms. A mathematical equation for SSC in the full water content range is developed, which conceptualizes a linear relation for adsorption shrinkage and a sigmoid relation for capillary shrinkage. The equation is validated with test data for a variety of soils. For given soils, the maximum adsorption water contents inferred independently from the SWR and SSC data are highly correlated, with a factor of 2.47. The analysis shows that the adsorption shrinkage rate is strongly correlated with the SWR characteristics of specific surface area (SSA) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). A universal exponential form between the adsorption shrinkage rate and SSA and between the adsorption shrinkage rate and CEC is discovered for silty and clayey soils.
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Acknowledgments
This research is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. CMMI 1233063 and CMMI 1230544), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11302243). The first author is also supported by the Chinese Academy of Science for overseas study.
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Dec 27, 2016
Accepted: Dec 12, 2017
Published online: May 24, 2018
Published in print: Aug 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Oct 24, 2018
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