Experimental Investigation of the Engineering Properties of Coarse Grain Embankment Fill Material with Accumulative Salt Effect by Adding Onsite Brine Groundwater
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 6
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to study the accumulative effect of repetitively adding groundwater on the engineering properties of coarse grain salinized embankment fill material. Large-scale compression and engineering characteristics tests were carried out on different salt content samples. Based on the laboratory test results, the influence factors on the engineering properties were analyzed by repetitively adding groundwater with or . With the increase of added water containing or , the compressive deformation of tested samples showed a trend of dramatically increasing at the beginning followed by gradually decreasing, while the collapse deformation of the samples increased continuously. The coefficient of compressibility showed a typical three-stage variation law, regardless of the salt type of added water. With the decrease in temperature (simulating the cooling period during construction), the excess content of in the water resulted in an increase of salt expansion in the samples, while shrinkage behavior was observed with the excess of in the water. Thus, an obvious accumulative effect in the salt expansion of the sample was observed. With the increasing addition of water containing or , the collapse deformation of the samples increased continuously. Moreover, the effects of added water with or on the engineering characteristics of the samples were discussed from the following perspectives: salt accumulation, distribution of salt in the soil, interaction of salt ions, and dissolution of soluble salt. It is further shown that even a small amount of soluble salt in groundwater will have a significant impact on the engineering properties of the coarse grain saline soil with an accumulative effect by repetitively adding groundwater.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request: (1) ion assay results of soil samples collected along the D-Y highspeed railway; (2) ion assay results of the groundwater samples collected along the D-Y highspeed railway project; and (3) other data can be obtained from published paper.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of (1) China scholarship council (File No. 201906565004); (2) the major scientific research project of the China Railway Group (Grant No. 2017-major-11-04); and (3) Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, CHD (Grant No. 300102219219).
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 6 • June 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jan 21, 2020
Accepted: Nov 9, 2020
Published online: Mar 29, 2021
Published in print: Jun 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Aug 29, 2021
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