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Title: An Effective Stress Model for Unsaturated Soils at Elevated Temperatures
Key engineering properties of unsaturated soils such as volume change and shear strength can be defined using the effective stress principle. Several problems like prolonged drought, high-level radioactive waste, buried high voltage cables can subject surface and near-surface unsaturated soils to elevated temperatures. Such elevated temperatures can affect the hydraulic and mechanical behavior of unsaturated soils. It is very important to develop a closed-form model that can reasonably estimate the effective stresses under different elevated temperatures. For this purpose, the current study incorporates the temperature effect into a suction stress-based representation of Bishop’s effective stress. The proposed model accounts for the effect of temperature on matric suction and degree of saturation. A temperature-dependent soil water retention curve is used to account for thermal effects on surface tension, contact angle, and enthalpy of immersion per unit area. The proposed effective stress model is then used to calculate the effective stress for two soils, Pachapa loam, and Seochang sandy clay, at various temperatures ranging from 25°C to 100°C. The validity of the model is examined by comparing the predicted effective degree of saturation and suction stress values against the experimental data reported in the literature for GMZ01 bentonite. At a constant net normal stress, the results for both soils show that the impact of temperature on effective stress can be significant. The proposed model can be used for studying geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering applications that involve elevated temperatures.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1634748
PAR ID:
10202915
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Geo-Congress 2020: Geo-Systems, Sustainability, Geoenvironmental Engineering, and Unsaturated Soil Mechanics, Geotechnical Special Publication No. 319
Page Range / eLocation ID:
358 to 366
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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