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Prakash2
Of late, the shrinkage properties are assuming greater importance as the soil is being used as backfill material in many instances, e.g. the nuclear fuel waste disposal systems. The backfill
material is often designed as soil mixtures primarily requiring low
shrinkage property along with other stringent requirements (Yong
et al. 1986). Thus, further understanding of the mechanism controlling the shrinkage of soil mixtures leads to increasing the confidence level before adopting the mechanism in the field. In this
context, this article gives an account of the experimental investigation of the shrinkage property of soil mixtures, including non-cohesive soils. The outcome of this study will give insight into the design of soil mixtures used as backfill materials in various waste
disposal projects in general and nuclear fuel waste disposal
schemes in particular.
Experimental Program
The soils used in the present study can be grouped in to three series:
Series 1: clay-clay mixtures
Series 2: sand-clay mixtures
Series 3: non-cohesive soil mixtures
Even though the shrinkage limit determination is done on minus
425 m soil fractions, for conducting some of the confirmatory
tests, sand fractions of maximum size 2 mm were also used. The
shrinkage limits of soils were determined by working the soils at
about their liquid-limit water contents into shrinkage dishes
(ASTM designation D427-83 1989). In those cases where the liquid limit values were not available (i.e., non-cohesive soil mixtures), the amount of water added was such that no segregation and
liquefaction occurred during the sample preparation. The wet soil
pats were allowed to air dry and were then dried at a temperature of
40C for 24 h and again at 110C for 24 h.
1
Honorary professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of
Science, Bangalore, 560 012, India.
2
Former research scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute
of Science, Bangalore, 560 012, India.
Soil
Liquid
Limit, %
01
02
03
04
Bentonite
Black cotton soil
Brown soil-1
Red earth-1
393.4
90.8
64.6
38.6
Plastic
Limit, %
Shrinkage
Limit, %
Clay Size
Silt Size
Sand Size
50.1
44.0
26.6
18.0
13.7
09.4
14.5
14.7
65.5
62.5
40.0
40.5
34.5
37.5
41.6
23.9
zero
zero
18.4
35.6
Montmorillonite
Montmorillonite
Montmorillonite, Kaolinite
Kaolinite
fine sand fraction the same, different sand-clay mixtures were prepared and their shrinkage limits were determined. For the sake of
presentation, a term mix ratio-1 (i.e., MR1) is defined herein as
the ratio of fine sand content to the silt clay (black cotton soil)
content.
Percentage fine sand content
MR1
(1)
Percentage (silt clay) content
Figure 4a shows the variation of the shrinkage limit with MR1.
There is a decrease in the shrinkage limit with a decrease in the
black cotton soil content up to a certain value. Below a certain limited black cotton soil content, the shrinkage limit shows an increasing trend. It is important to observe that changing the internal
distribution of different-sized particles keeping the total fine sand
content the same as that resulted in minimum shrinkage limit, has
resulted in a considerable increase in the shrinkage limit (i.e.,
Points A and B in Fig. 4a). This highlights the importance of the
relative grain size distribution in controlling the shrinkage limit of
soils.
The bentonite clay was mixed with fine sand fraction (150 m
D 212 m) in different proportions. The shrinkage limits of
these mixtures were determined (Table 4). Figure 4b shows the
variation of the shrinkage limit of bentonite-sand mixture
FIG. 2Variation of the liquid and shrinkage limits with the percentage
of soil in the clay-clay mix: (a) bentonite and brown soil-1 mix; (b) brown
soil-1 and red earth-1 mix.
Soil
Size
Liquid
Limit, %
Shrinkage
Limit, %
D10, mm
D30, mm
D60, mm
Cu
Cc
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
Medium sand-1
Medium sand-2
Fine sand-1
Fine sand-2
Fine sand-3
Fine sand-4
Sand flour
Rock flour
1.180 mm D 2.000 mm
0.425 mm D 1.180 mm
0.075 mm D 0.425 mm
0.212 mm D 0.425 mm
0.150 mm D 0.212 mm
0.075 mm D 0.150 mm
D 0.075 mm
D 0.075 mm
30.5
33.2
35.9
31.4
39.4
26.6
32.6
1.24
0.480
0.205
0.212
0.154
0.076
0.0086
0.0205
1.380
0.600
0.245
0.222
0.162
0.080
0.024
0.0348
1.600
0.760
0.310
0.270
0.177
0.098
0.047
0.052
1.290
1.583
1.512
1.274
0.149
1.289
5.465
2.537
0.960
0.987
0.945
0.861
0.963
0.859
1.425
1.136
A
FIG. 3aGrain-size distribution of non-cohesive soils.
B
FIG. 3bGrain-size distribution of non-cohesive soils.
TABLE 3Details of tests conducted on black cotton soilsand mixtures.
Proportion of Black
Cotton Soil
(Combining Silt and
Clay Size Fraction
Only) and Sand Size
Particles in the Mix, %
Split up proportion in c, %
Soil No.
c*
d**
MR1 c/d
Ws, %
02
57
58
59
60
00
12.4
12.4
25.0
50.0
100
87.6
87.6
75.0
50.0
05.25
08.00
10.585
21.169
2.25
3.00
4.536
9.073
04.9
01.4
09.879
19.758
00
0.142
0.142
0.333
1.000
09.4
08.7
11.6
10.8
15.3
MR1 c/d
ws (%)
01
61
62
63
64
00
25
50
75
85
100
75
50
25
15
00
0.333
1.000
3.000
5.667
13.7
11.8
25.2
32.0
35.2
a*
c$
d#
f (a b) (%)
g (c d) (%)
MR2 f/g
w%
55
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
0
9
11
13
15
16
17
17
18
19
19
20
21
24
0
11
13
15
17
18
19
19
20
21
21
22
23
26
0
23
26
26
26
25
24
26
26
25
26
24
23
18
100
57
50
46
42
41
40
38
36
35
34
34
33
32
0
20
24
28
32
34
36
36
38
40
40
42
44
50
100
80
76
72
68
66
64
64
62
60
60
58
56
50
0
0.250
0.316
0.389
0.471
0.515
0.563
0.563
0.613
0.666
0.666
0.724
0.786
1.000
26.6
15.8
16.5
16.0
14.2
14.6
13.5
13.3
12.9
12.6
12.6
12.7
12.8
13.0
$
#
FIG. 5Variation of shrinkage limit of non-cohesive soil mixtures with mix ratio-2.
Conclusions
References
ASTM designation: D427-83 (1989), Standard Method for Shrinkage Factors of Soils, Annual Book of ASTM Standards, Vol.
4.08, ASTM, West Conshohocken, PA.
Sridharan, A. and Prakash, K., 1998a, Characteristic Water Contents of Fine Grained Soil-Water System, Geotechnique, Vol.
48, No. 3, pp. 337346.
Sridharan, A. and Prakash, K. (1998b), Mechanism Controlling
the Shrinkage Limit of Soils, Geotechnical Testing Journal,
GTJO DJ, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 240250.
Sridharan, A. and Vekatappa Rao, G, 1971, Effective Stress Theory of Shrinkage Phenomena, Canadian Geotechnical Journal,
Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 503513.
Yong, R. N., Boonsinsuk, P., and Wong, G., (1986), Formulation
of Back Fill Material for a Nuclear Fuel Waste Disposal Vault,
Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Vol. 23, pp. 216228.