Abstract
It is commonly accepted that wetting–drying cycles have an effect on the soil strength behavior. Crack development in soil is observed by many engineers during wetting–drying cycles, which may give a good explanation for the change in soil strength. A series of laboratory tests were conducted in this study to investigate the desiccation crack development and the strength change law for silty clay subjected to different numbers of wetting–drying cycles. The results show that the desiccation cracks at the end of drying process developed in two stages: the stage of rapid growth and the stage of steady state. The change law of soil strength is similar to the cracking that decreases quickly in the former stage and slowly in the latter stage, which indicates that the cracking in the soil is the main reason for strength reduction. Based on the assumption of an isotropic and linear elastic soil mass at rest earth pressure conditions, an equation for the depth of desiccation cracking after different numbers of wetting–drying cycles was obtained with soil mechanics for unsaturated soils. Finally, the applicability of the equation was verified compared with the experiment results.
Highlights
Wetting–drying cycles are common in nature (Gao et al, 2019; Gao et al, 2020; Gao et al, 2021; Martin et al, 2021)
The objective of this study is to establish a mechanical model of the desiccation crack development, thereby to further explain the decrease of soil strength experienced wetting–drying cycles
The results showed that the desiccation cracks developed rapidly in the first two cycles but slowly after two cycles, with the increasing number of wetting–drying cycles
Summary
Wetting–drying cycles are common in nature (Gao et al, 2019; Gao et al, 2020; Gao et al, 2021; Martin et al, 2021). Influenced by wetting–drying cycles, the soil strength behavior will change, which may have negative effects on the safety of structures such as the underground storage (Shi et al, 2014b; Liu et al, 2018, Liu et al, 2020, Liu and Gao, 2020). It is significant to investigate the effect of wetting–drying cycles on the soil strength behavior. A number of experiments have been conducted to research the relationship between the soil strength behavior and wetting–drying cycles. The shear strength of clay affected by wetting–drying cycles was investigated by Rajiaram and Erbach et al (1999) in the laboratory. The results showed that the soil strength of clay changes significantly with the wetting–drying cycles. In addition to clay, wetting–drying cycles have a negative effect on the strength of other kinds of soil. Goh et al (2014) conducted a series of consolidated drained triaxial tests by using three different
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