Chemical stabilization of mobile dunefields along a highway in the Taklimakan Desert of China

Abstract

To control the impacts of blown sand on a highway in China's Taklimakan Desert, we prepared several liquid polymer stabilizers compatible with the local environment. We evaluated the crushing strength and resistance to wind erosion of four sand stabilizers: LVA (a polyvinyl alcohol emulsion), LVP (a polyvinyl acetate emulsion) , WBS (a mixture of water glass and calcium chloride), and STB (a mixture of water glass and urea). The droplet size ranged between 0.2 and 0.5 μm, and viscosity ranged from 12 to 15 Pa s. The stabilizers were noncombustible and after mixing, did not precipitate at temperatures between 10 and 70 °C. The strength of the chemical crust ranged between 1.0 and 12.1 MPa, the weight loss at low temperatures (10 to −20 °C) ranged from 0% to 1.8%, and the strength loss was between 0% and 41.4% after 300 h of ultraviolet irradiation. The erosion rate in a wind tunnel was between 0 and 4 g h −1 100 cm −2 at wind velocities of up to 25.3 m s −1. We also sprayed the stabilizers on 1200 m 2 of shifting dunes along a highway in the Taklimakan Desert and produced a strong crust 0.2–0.5 cm thick. Our results suggest that all the stabilizers exhibited good infiltration, crushing strength, and elasticity, and that they could thus be used to control damage to highways caused by blown sand in the Taklimakan Desert.