Evaluation of expansivity of Neogene clays and glacial tills from central Poland (Warsaw area) on the basis of suction tests

Abstract

This pa per pres ents the char ac ter is tics of the expansivity and quan ti ta tive pre dic tion of heave of clay soils from Po land based on suc tion test ing. Eleven Neo gene clays and six gla cial tills, dif fer ing in gen e sis and plas tic ity, were ana lysed to identify the ex pan sive po ten tial us ing eight em pir i cal meth ods. The lab o ra tory stud ies in cluded mea sure ments of soil-wa ter charac ter is tic curves and soil in dex prop er ties. Data from wa ter con tent, vol ume and suc tion mea sure ments served to de ter mine the suc tion com pres sion in dex C h and the suc tion-wa ter con tent in dex Dh/Dw of the soils ex am ined. The val ues of these in dices are clearly de pend ent on the clay frac tion con tent in tested soils. Com pared with gla cial tills, Neo gene clays are expected to ex hibit greater changes in vol ume due to changes in soil suc tion. Com par a tive re sults of the eval u a tion of expansivity sug gest that the cho sen clas si fi ca tion meth od ol o gies pro vided con sis tent ex pan sion rat ings for gla cial tills, while the val ues for Neo gene clays vary from low to very high. The low est expansivity classes have been ob tained from eval u a tion based on soil suc tion. The McKeen (1992) method has been adopted for cal cu la tions of the po ten tial field heave of Neo gene clays and gla cial tills. In or der to pro vide a ra tio nal es ti ma tion of ex pan sive soil be hav iour, spe cial ists should take into con sider ation the spe cific site and de sign fea tures.

Prediction of Heave from the CLOD Index for Natural and Contaminated Clay Soils from the Mazovia Area

“…Due to a high homogeneity of the CLOD index of Neogene clays, the outcome of this study seems especially valuable for predicting heave for this type of soil. The method here described is another approach (compare [14]) to estimating expansive soil behaviour of typical clay soils widely occurring in Poland, differing in genesis and compositional characteristic. According to some authors, soil shrinkage characteristics are not suitable for predicting soil behaviour related to swelling.…”

“…This paper is a continuation of a previous study by the present authors [14] focused on prediction of heave based on suction measurements, and contributes to the examinations of contaminated soil properties and estimating expansive soil behaviour for typical clay soils widely occurring in Poland [15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

Acta Geologica Polonica

“…Barański 2015). The Stegny locality was chosen for this research since it has been well documented prior to this study (Kaczyński et al 2000;Bajda 2002;Sobolewski 2002;Wójcik 2003;Barański et al 2004Barański et al , 2009Lech and Bajda 2004;Szczepański 2005;Wójcik 2007, 2008;Izdebska-Mucha and Wójcik 2014). However, none of the previous research related to the assessment of the effect of soil suction on the microstructure of the studied clays.…”

Validation of Semi-empirical Models for the Prediction of Swelling Stress for Compacted Unsaturated Expansive Soils

“…The results are found to be in good concurrence with the experimental data and the data obtained from the literature for the same bentonite. However, several reports in the literature have shown reliable prediction of swelling stress using empirical and semiempirical models for compacted expansive soils [17][18][19]. In furtherance, some available predictive models are developed for different types of expansive soils, ranging from undisturbed, compacted, and laboratory-built expansive soils.…”