Triaxial Mechanical Characteristics and Microscopic Mechanism of Graphene-Modified Cement Stabilized Expansive Soil

Abstract

To investigate the effect of graphene (G) on the triaxial mechanical characteristics of cement stabilized soil, a triaxial unconsolidated and undrained (UU) test was conducted on cement stabilized expansive soil (CES) and graphene-modified cement stabilized expansive soil (GCES) with 0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, and 0.2%G content, respectively. The experimental results showed that compared with CES, the deviatoric stress-strain curve of GCES showed a more obvious softening characteristic. The addition of G had a good modification effect on the triaxial mechanical characteristics of CES, and with the increase of the content of G, the compressive strength and shear strength of CES increased first and then decreased, and reached the best value when the G content was 0.1%. The failure angle predicted by the Mohr-Coulomb failure angle formula had a good correlation with the measured failure angle of soil specimens, so it could provide help for the prediction of soil failure surface in practical engineering. Besides, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis indicated that the internal structure of CES was improved due to G addition.