Abstract
According to U.S. EPA, there are 488,496 confirmed cases of leaky underground storage tanks (UST) nationwide as of September 30, 2009. Soil contamination due to oil spills and leaky USTs has a direct impact on geotechnical properties of affected soil and, therefore, on already existing structures such as foundation embankments and clay liners. In addition, it has been a common practice to use contaminated soil as a fill material or roadway sub-base material. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the effect of oil contamination on physical and mechanical properties of soil. Prior studies have shown the effect of pore fluid chemistry on the soil properties, such as permeability and shear strength. Dielectric constant and fluid viscosity have been found to have the major influence on soil behavior. However, the number of studies is very limited, especially when it is related to geotechnical properties of clays. The current study examines the effect of gasoline on geotechnical properties of high-plasticity and low-plasticity clay. Then, the effect of pore fluid properties on the observed behavior of clay is studied in closer details. The study demonstrated that dielectric constant alone can’t be attributed to the changes in geotechnical properties of soil. Adsorption process, however, was found to influence soil properties at lower concentrations of contaminant. BACKGROUND Human activities frequently lead to soil contamination through the release of organic compounds and, consequently, to changes in the soil engineering properties. When contaminant is released to soil, it is held in soil matrix by chemical adsorption and entrained within the pore spaces surrounding the soil grains. The changes in soil properties due to the introduction of contaminants into pore spaces have gotten a lot of attention. However, most studies conducted have been focused on the contaminant movement in soil rather than the effect in soil properties. A limited number of studies examined the effect of contamination on soil properties of fine-grained soils. Prior studies demonstrated that the behavior of the fine-grained soils, especially those with
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