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Influence of salt concentration on volume shrinkage and water retention characteristics of compacted GMZ bentonite

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Abstract

The chemistry of pore water plays an important role on the hydraulic and mechanical properties of compacted bentonite used as buffer/backfill material in the repository of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). In this study, a series of compacted GMZ bentonite specimen with a dry density of 1.7 Mg/m3 were prepared and initially saturated with NaCl solutions of different concentrations (0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 mol/L), respectively. The drying process was brought forward on the specimens through increasing their suction by using vapor phase technique. During the drying process, the cracking behavior of the specimens was observed; the volume shrinkage and the water retention characteristics (WRCs) were investigated with the consideration of the chemistry. The results obtained show that the compacted specimen initially saturated with distilled water was observed with cracking when its suction increased to 82 MPa and others were found to crack off as their suctions increased to 139 MPa, while no cracks could be observed for the specimens below the suction of 82 MPa. For the confined specimens, volume shrinkage occurred with increase of the suction, accordingly changing their porosity; the void ratio of the specimens decreased as the suction of the soil increased and increased with the chemistry of the pore water. Meanwhile, the chemistry of the pore water has more significant impact on the WRCs of the specimens at a lower suction.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41422207, 41272287 and 41527801), the Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (15A009), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities and the Open Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Z013006). The authors also wish to acknowledge the support of the European Commission via the Marie Curie IRSES project GREAT ‘Geotechnical and geological Responses to climate change: Exchanging Approaches and Technologies on a world-wide scale’ (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IRSES-612665).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of Ministry of Education, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, 200092, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Yong He, Yong-Gui Chen, Wei-Min Ye & Bao Chen

  2. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 430071, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China

    Yong-Gui Chen

  3. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Changsha University of Science and Technology, 410114, Changsha, People’s Republic of China

    Yong He & Yong-Gui Chen

  4. Laboratoire Navier/CERMES, Ecole des Ponts-ParisTech, 77455, Marne-la-Vallée, France

    Yu-Jun Cui

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  1. Yong He
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Correspondence to Yong-Gui Chen.

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He, Y., Chen, YG., Ye, WM. et al. Influence of salt concentration on volume shrinkage and water retention characteristics of compacted GMZ bentonite. Environ Earth Sci 75, 535 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-5228-3

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