Abstract
The coal fly ash (CFA) is massively produced as a consequence of coal source residues in Northern Shaanxi Province, China. Since disposing the waste materials in mountainous gully widely distributed in the same area is one of the possibilities, the high compressibility and low strength of CFA become a severe problem for the stacking. The aeolian fine sands are close to Mu Us Desert, as the addition material was introduced to improve the mechanical behaviours of CFA. A series of oedometer and triaxial tests were performed on pure CFA, pure sands, and their mixtures containing 25%, 50%, and 80% of sands by weight, respectively. Test results were analyzed within the framework of critical state soil mechanics. With increasing sands content, normally consolidated lines (NCLs) and critical state lines (CSLs) of tested materials change in volume space as well as their compression or shearing paths. The mechanical parameters like C c , Г, λ decrease as a result of increasing sands content. On the contrary, the M and ∅ c s ' increase with augmenting sands content. It is concluded that the aeolian sands can significantly decrease the compressibility of the CFA and increase its shear strength. These findings would be useful for the treatment of CFA, which is significant for solving environmental problems in northern Shaanxi Province.
Highlights
Mu Us Desert, located on the northern edge of the Chinese Loess Plateau, is one of the most important energy industry bases in China
It will give rise to serious geoenvironmental problems if the coal fly ash (CFA) cannot be disposed properly. e aeolian fine sands are widely distributed in northern Shaanxi Province, which is very close to Mu Us Desert. ese sands are very weak in water-holding, and not suitable for agriculture [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. e CFA is composed of some strong waterabsorption materials
By carrying out a series of oedometer and triaxial tests, this study investigates the mechanical properties of pure coal fly ash (CFA), pure aeolian fine sands, and their mixtures containing 20%, 50%, and 75% of sands by weight. e effects of sands on CFA have been investigated within the framework of critical state of soil mechanics
Summary
Mu Us Desert, located on the northern edge of the Chinese Loess Plateau, is one of the most important energy industry bases in China. E aeolian fine sands are widely distributed in northern Shaanxi Province, which is very close to Mu Us Desert. Ese sands are very weak in water-holding, and not suitable for agriculture [2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. E CFA is composed of some strong waterabsorption materials. Because of the complementary waterholding characteristics of CFA and aeolian fine sand, the large amount of CFA can be taken as a potential solution to improve the water-holding capacity of sands. Since the gullies are the typical morphology in northern Shaanxi Province, landfill might be a possibility to dispose such huge amount of CFA. Filling gullies using the mixtures of aeolian sands and CFA might take advantage of both materials
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