Abstract
Expansive clay soils are a problem for agriculture and engineering because they are susceptible to change in volume due to seasonal variation in water content and temperature. One of its morphological properties is slickensides, which result from the ability to contract and crack when dry and expand by wetting. The objective of this study was to evaluate the processes of expansion and formation and propagation of cracks due to the change in water content over time. The expansion process [...]
Highlights
Expansive soils have attracted the attention of scientists in many countries because of their unusual properties, expanding when moistened and contracting and cracking when dried
Volume change due to wetting with different overburden is presented in figure 2 showing the curves for specific vertical deformation vs. time (Figure 2a), specific deformation vs. applied vertical stress (σ) (Figure 2b), and swelling potential vs. applied vertical stress (Figure 2c)
When the water content decreased from 76.1 % (Figure 3a) to 69.90 % (Figure 3b), the first cracks on the surface of the sample appear after 4.8 h of drying, registering a Crack Intensity Factor (CIF) of 0.6 %
Summary
Expansive soils have attracted the attention of scientists in many countries because of their unusual properties, expanding when moistened and contracting and cracking when dried. The main difficulty in the use of expansive soil is the proper management of water in agricultural practices These soils have horizons with a high level of type 2:1 clay minerals which, when moistened, increase in volume due to the entry of water within their structure, making them plastic and sticky. Consideration must be given to the densification caused by machinery and animal trampling when grazing, in addition to surface sealing due to the impact of rain (Flores et al, 2007; Collares et al, 2008; Moraes et al, 2011) When this land is used for construction or requires engineering structures such as irrigation canals and agrovillages, special attention is required, as the implantation of a structure inevitably modifies the field soil water content (Al-Rawas et al, 2006; Al-Mukhtar et al, 2012; Liu et al, 2014; Lim and Siemens, 2016; Yuan et al, 2016)
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