Study on the Effect of Freeze-thaw on the Unconfined Compressive Strength of Silt

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-728-1_43How to use a DOI?

Keywords

freeze-thaw cycles; silt; unconfined compressive strength; water content; prediction methods

Abstract

Using typical silt from the west bank of Qinghai Lake as the research object, we prepared silt specimens with Initial moisture contents of 21%, 24%, 27%. We investigated the effects of the freeze-thaw cycle times and the initial water content on the unconfined compressive strength of the silt through indoor freeze-thaw cycle tests and unconfined compressive strength tests. The results indicate that the stress-strain characteristics of the silt are significantly influenced by both the initial moisture content and freeze-thaw cycle times. The effects of freezing- thawing notably deteriorate the strength of the silt, with the most considerable attenuation occurring after the first cycle. Additionally, the strength of the silt decreases as the initial moisture content increases, with freeze-thaw cycling has a greater effect on silts with higher initial moisture content. Based on these observations, we fitted a function to the test data and found that the strength of the silt follows an approximate natural exponential decay relationship with the freeze-thaw cycle times. Consequently, we established a predictive model for strength under the combined influence of the freeze-thaw cycle times and the initial water content.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Lei Chen
AU  - Lei Zhang
AU  - Xiaoliang Lian
AU  - Yi Liao
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/19
TI  - Study on the Effect of Freeze-thaw on the Unconfined Compressive Strength of Silt
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Green Building, Civil Engineering and Smart City (GBCESC 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 433
EP  - 443
SN  - 2352-5401
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-728-1_43
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-728-1_43
ID  - Chen2025
ER  -