Abstract
The complicated composition of unsaturated clay, e.g., solid mineral particles, water, and air, makes it difficult to get its precise equation of state (EOS) over a wide pressure range. In this paper, the high-pressure EOS of unsaturated clay was discussed at the mesoscale. With the original clay extracted from the southern suburbs of Luoyang city, China, three unsaturated clays with moisture contents of 0%, 8%, and 15%, respectively, were remolded. Their Hugoniot parameters in the pressure range of 0–30 GPa were measured using a one-stage or two-stage light gas gun. With the measured Hugoniot parameters, a high-pressure EOS of the unsaturated clay up to 30 GPa was developed and it is in good agreement with the experimental data.
Highlights
Unsaturated clay is generally considered a three-constituent mixture composed of soil skeleton, water, and air, where the soil skeleton is formed by many solid mineral particles
According to the moisture content of the samples, the shock-impacted experiments were divided into three groups and each group had four samples with the same moisture content
The shock wave pressure in the samples was obtained with the Hugoniot relation
Summary
Unsaturated clay is generally considered a three-constituent mixture composed of soil skeleton, water, and air, where the soil skeleton is formed by many solid mineral particles. When the external load increases to a threshold, the solid particles will be closely compacted and form many discrete enclosed rooms, in which most the water and air are locked. At this stage, the soil skeleton, water, and air bear the same load. During the external load increases from the elastic limit pe to the compacted pressure pc, numerous solid particles will be sheared to slip and rearrange to a new position to accommodate the external load, and form more and more enclosed. The developed EOS in this study can be applied for the numerical simulation of an underground explosion
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