ISSN: 0149-6115
Page Count: 11

Effect of Aging on Swelling and Swell-Shrink Behavior of a Compacted Expansive Soil

Subba Rao, KS
Professor,Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,

Tripathy, S
Research fellow,School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University,

(Received 9 January 2001; accepted 18 March 2002)

Abstract

Effect of aging on swelling and swell-shrink behavior of a compacted expansive soil is investigated in this paper. An expansive soil having a liquid limit of 100% is used for this purpose. Compacted specimens were prepared and aged for a predetermined number of days (7, 15, 30, and 90 days) to study their swelling and swell-shrink behavior. It has been shown that aging improves the resistance to compression of compacted specimens. The swelling potentials of specimens also decreased with aging. The dominant factors that influence the aging effects are the water content and degree of saturation at the beginning of the aging process. The changed behavior of aged specimens is attributed to particle rear-rangements and formation of bonds, which affect the surface area absorbing water during swelling. The cyclic swell-shrink tests on aged specimens indicated that the differences in vertical displacement during the first swelling were eliminated in the subsequent cycles when specimens were shrunk more, but the aging effect was found to persist with cycles for specimens subjected to lower shrinkage magnitudes.

Keywords:
expansive soil, laboratory study, aging effects, compression-rebound, swelling, swell-shrink behavior, and bandwidth of movement

Paper ID: GTJ11100J
DOI: 10.1520/GTJ11100J
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