Effects of soil fabric on volume change behaviour of clay under cyclic heating and cooling

Abstract

To investigate the influence of soil fabric on volume changes of soil under cyclic thermal loads, reconstituted, intact and recompacted clay specimens were tested at normally consolidated state using a newly developed temperature-controlled invar oedometer. All specimens showed continuous contraction as the number of heating-cooling cycles increased. The accumulated plastic axial strain of the reconstituted specimen was 38% and 68% larger than those of the intact and recompacted specimens, respectively. On the other hand, the thermal expansion coefficient of the reconstituted specimen was almost three times larger than those of the intact and recompacted specimens. These observed differences are likely attributed to different distributions of clay particles in soil specimens.