Moisture variation significantly affects the strength and volume characteristics of soils. One of the barriers to implementing the stiffness-based quality assurance during construction is the variation (often drying) of moisture, which complicates the measurements of stiffness. Studies on the drying of unbound soils and cementitiously stabilized soils typically have focused on the measurement of moisture content or shrinkage, without an in-depth understanding of the drying mechanisms. An accurate characterization of the process of moisture loss in soils and cementitiously stabilized soils during drying is critical to predicting properties such as strength, stiffness, creep, and shrinkage and, therefore, is critical to understanding the engineering performance of such soils. This paper proposes a practical approach to model the moisture loss of soils and cementitiously stabilized soils under one-dimensional drying conditions at a constant temperature. The moisture loss is affected by the ambient relative humidity (RH), pore RH, and the soil's moisture diffusion coefficient. In this study, a nonlinear relationship between the soil diffusion coefficient and the pore RH is developed on the basis of experiments. The governing constitutive differential equation for predicting the pore RH is solved with the finite element method. The modeling procedure and results are verified by the experimental results with reasonable accuracy. It is found that adding cement to soil can reduce the diffusion coefficient significantly and therefore affect the moisture diffusion behaviors.
Modeling the Drying Process of Unbound Soils and Cementitiously Stabilized Soils
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board ; 2462 , 1 ; 117-125
2014-01-01
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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