Abstract
Experimental investigations on the impact of multiple drying–wetting cycles on mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils, particularly on shear behaviour, are limited. Suction-controlled direct shear tests were carried out to investigate the impact of multiple drying–wetting cycles on shear behaviour of an unsaturated compacted clay. One drying–wetting cycle was applied on a soil specimen by increasing its suction to 400 kPa followed by returning its suction to 1 or 200 kPa at constant vertical stress. The experimental results showed that more significant volume contraction occurred during the first drying–wetting cycle as compared with the subsequent drying–wetting cycles. At higher net normal stress (i.e. 200 kPa), a transition from shear-induced contraction to dilation was found. Nevertheless, such transition from contraction to dilation was not observed for the specimens at lower net normal stress (i.e. 50 kPa). The results also showed that amplitude of drying–wetting cycles and vertical stress influences the shear strength. The shear strength increases slightly after the first drying–wetting cycle at lower net normal stress; at higher net normal stress the effect of the first cycle on the shear strength is contrast.
Similar content being viewed by others
Change history
09 February 2019
The original article can be found online.
References
Alshihabi O, Shahrour I, Mieussens C (2002) Experimetnal study of the influence of drying-wetting cycles on the resistance of a compacted soil. Proc 3rd Int Conf UNSAT 2:491–494
Chen R, Ng CWW (2013) Impact of wetting-drying cycles on hydro-mechanical behaviour of an unsaturated compacted clay. Appl Clay Sci 86:38–46
Chinese National Standard (CNS), GB/T 50145-2007 (2007) Standard for engineering classification of soil, Beijing (in Chinese)
Chinese Sector Standard (CSS), SL 237-1999 (1999) Specification of soil test, Beijing (in Chinese)
Estabragh AR, Parsaei B, Javadi AA (2015) Laboratory investigation of the effect of cyclic wetting and drying on the behaviour of an expansive soil. Soils Found 55:304–314
Gens A, Sánchez M, Sheng D (2006) On constitutive modelling of unsaturated soils. Acta Geotech 1:137–147
Goh SG, Rahardjo H, Leong EC (2014) Shear strength of unsaturated soils under multiple drying-wetting cycles. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 140:06013001
Guan GS, Rahardjo H, Leong EC (2010) Shear strength equations for unsaturated soil under drying and wetting. J Geotech Geoenviron Eng 136(4):594–606
He Y, Cui YJ, Ye WM, Conil N (2017) Effects of wetting-drying cycles on the air permeability of compacted Teguline clay. Eng Geol 228:173–179
Hilf JW (1956) An investigation of pore water pressure in compacted cohesive soils. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Technical Memorandum 654
Li J, Yin ZY, Cui YJ, Hicher PY (2017) Work input analysis for soils with double porosity and application to the hydromechanical modeling of unsaturated expansive clays. Can Geotech J 54(2):173–187
Liu WH, Yang Q, Tang XW, Yang G (2016) Effect of drying and wetting on the shear strength of a low-plasticity clay with different initial dry densities. J Test Eval 44:1802–1811
Ng CWW, Pang YW (2000) Experimental investigations of the soil-water characteristics of a volcanic soil. Can Geotech J 37:1252–1264
Ng CWW, Xu J, Yung SY (2009) Effects of wetting-drying and stress ratio on anisotropic very small strain stiffness of an unsaturated soil. Can Geotech J 46(9):1062–1076
Ng CWW, Zhou C, Yuan Q, Xu J (2013) Resilient modulus of unsaturated subgrade soil: experimental and theoretical investigations. Can Geotech J 50(2):223–232
Nowamooz H, Masrouri F (2008) Hydromechanical behaviour of an expansive bentonite/silt mixture in cyclic suction-controlled drying and wetting tests. Eng Geol 101:154–164
Pardini G, Guidi GV, Pini R, Regüés D, Gallart F (1996) Structure and porosity of smectitic mudrocks as affected by experimental wetting-drying cycles and freezing-thawing cycles. Catena 27:149–165
Qiao J (2013) Stability analysis of unsaturated soil slope under drying-wetting cycles. Master thesis, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen
Rosenbalm D, Zapata CE (2016) Effect of wetting and drying cycles on the behavior of compacted expansive soils. J Mater Civ Eng 29:04016191
Sivakumar V, Tan WC, Murray EJ, McKinley JD (2006) Wetting, drying and compression characteristics of compacted clay. Géotechnique 56(1):57–62
Tamagnini R (2004) An extended Cam-clay model for unsaturated soils with hydraulic hysteresis. Géotechnique 54(3):223–228
Tang CS, Wang DY, Shi B, Li J (2016) Effect of wetting-drying cycles on profile mechanical behavior of soils with different initial conditions. Catena 139:105–116
Thu TM, Rahardjo H, Leong EC (2006) Effects of hysteresis on shear strength envelopes from constant water content and consolidated drained triaxial tests. In: Proceeding 4th international conference of unsaturated soil, UNSAT 2006, ASCE geotechnical special publication 147, ASCE, Reston, VA, pp 1212–1222
Tse EYM, Ng CWW (2008) Effects of drying and wetting cycles on unsaturated shear strength. In: Proceedings of the 1st European conference on unsaturated soils, E-UNSAT 2008, pp 481–486
Wang YX, Guo PP, Ren WX, Yuan BX, Yuan HP, Zhao YL, Shan SB, Cao P (2017) Laboratory investigation on strength characteristics of expansive soil treated with jute fiber reinforcement. Int J Geomech 17(11):04017101
Wheeler SJ, Karube D (1995) Constitutive modelling. In: Proceedings of 1st international conference on unsaturated soils, Paris 3, pp 1323–1356
Wheeler SJ, Sharma RJ, Buisson MSR (2003) Coupling of hydraulic hysteresis and stress-strain behaviour in unsaturated soils. Géotechnique 53(1):41–54
Zhan LT, Ng CWW (2006) Shear strength characteristics of an unsaturated expansive clay. Can Geotech J 43(7):751–763
Zhou C, Ng CWW (2014) A new simple stress-dependent water retention model for unsaturated soil. Comput Geotech 62:216–222
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from research Grants no. 51578196 provided by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the research Grants no. JCYJ20170811160740635 and no. JCYJ20160531192824598 provided by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission. Particularly, the second author would like to acknowledge the scholarship funded by China Scholarship Council.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chen, R., Xu, T., Lei, W. et al. Impact of multiple drying–wetting cycles on shear behaviour of an unsaturated compacted clay. Environ Earth Sci 77, 683 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7868-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7868-6