Wetting–Drying–Freezing–Thawing Cycle Effect on the Swelling Pressure of Yanji Mudstone Using Various Determination Methods
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36, Issue 6
Abstract
Swelling rocks and soils can generate significant swell or swelling pressure upon contact with water due to their special mineralogical composition, and thus a reliable determination of their swelling property is essential when evaluating the long-term safety and stability of adjacent geotechnical infrastructure. In this work, the swelling pressures of Yanji mudstone before and after seasonal wetting–drying (WD), freezing–thawing (FT) and wetting–drying–freezing–thawing (WDFT) processes were experimentally determined by zero-swell, load-swell, and swell-consolidation methods. It was found that the seasonal processes significantly reduced the swelling pressures determined by different methods because of the contraction of aggregates and the appearance of large pores and fissures/cracks. Due to the more intensive microstructure change, the WDFT process had a more detrimental influence on the swelling pressure of Yanji mudstone than separate WD or FT cycles. Moreover, a comparison among three determination methods showed that a larger swelling pressure was measured by the swell-consolidation method owing to the greater resistance of the even microstructure after hydration under a low vertical stress and the possible friction with cell wall during consolidation compared with the load-swell and zero-swell methods. With the increase of WDFT cycles, this difference method decreased because the large pores and fissures/cracks could increase the compressibility of swollen specimens in the swell-consolidation tests and accelerate the water infiltration in the zero-swell and load-swell tests.
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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.
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFC1509901).
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36 • Issue 6 • June 2024
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© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Feb 1, 2023
Accepted: Nov 16, 2023
Published online: Mar 22, 2024
Published in print: Jun 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Aug 22, 2024
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