An approach for modelling volume change of fine-grained soil subjected to thermal cycles

Abstract

As a result of cyclic heating and cooling around the ambient temperature under drained conditions, normally consolidated and lightly overconsolidated fine-grained soils experience accumulation of irreversible volumetric contraction. Most existing thermomechanical models were developed for one heating–cooling cycle and are not suitable for multiple thermal cycles. An approach is proposed to simulate the volume change of fine-grained soil induced by thermal cycles. In the proposed approach, a thermal stabilization line is introduced to control the stabilized volumetric contraction under thermal cycles. Comparison with experimental results shows that the proposed approach can reproduce well the cumulative feature of volumetric contraction of fine-grained soil subjected to thermal cycles.