Experimental investigations of soil shrinkage characteristics and their effects on the soil water characteristic curve

Abstract

Abstract The magnitude of the volume change in response to changes in the water content is usually described by the soil-shrinkage characteristic curve (SSCC). The void ratio of soil is affected by its shrinkage behavior, and the soil water characteristic curve (SWCC) will be affected. In this paper, a new test platform is introduced to measure the soil shrinkage behavior during the drying process of silicon micropowder (SMP), Guangxi Guiping clay (GGC) and kaolin. The soil water characteristic curves of these tested soils were measured without and with considering volume change during soil shrinking. The results show that after drying ended, the volume shrinkage values of the soil samples were 0.31%, 20.1% and 31.4%, while the corresponding initial void ratios were 0.67, 1.03, and 1.04, respectively. The soil shrinkage curve with decreasing water content could be divided into three stages: normal shrinkage, residual shrinkage and zero shrinkage. In addition, the void ratio after soil shrinkage had a considerable influence on the SWCC.