• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.283-291
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• 2018

Cracks in soil provide significant preferential pathways for contaminant transport and rainfall infiltration. Water exchange between the soil matrix and crack is crucial to characterize the preferential flow, which is often quantitatively described by a water exchange ratio. The water exchange ratio is defined as the amount of water flowing from the crack into the clay matrix per unit time. Most of the previous studies on the water exchange ratio mainly focused on cracked sandy soils. The water exchange between cracks and clay matrix were rarely studied mainly due to two reasons: (1) Cracks open upon drying and close upon wetting. The deformable cracks lead to a dynamic change in the water exchange ratio. (2) The aperture of desiccation crack in clay is narrow (generally 0.5 mm to 5 mm) which is difficult to model in experiments. This study will investigate the water exchange between a deformable crack and the clay matrix using a newly developed experimental apparatus. An artificial crack with small aperture was first fabricated in clay without disturbing the clay matrix. Water content sensors and suction sensors were instrumented at different places of the cracked clay to monitor the water content and suction changes. Results showed that the water exchange ratio was relatively large at the initial stage and decreased with the increasing water content in clay matrix. The water exchange ratio increased with increasing crack apertures and approached the largest value when the clay was compacted at the water content to the optimal water content. The effective hydraulic conductivity of the crack-clay matrix interface was about one order of magnitude larger than that of saturated soil matrix.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.03a
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• pp.483-490
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• 2002

A massive amount of marine clay produced as dredging of coast and sea bed is often dumped in open sea and filled in pond. The treatment of marine clay demand a large area and make fatal environmental problems for echo system. This research work intend to manufacture a light-weight landfill materials which are produced by mixing the dredged marine clay with various amount cement and foam. An extensive Uniaxial and Triaxial compression test are carried out to investigate the strength characteristics of the light-weight cement mixed marine clay with foam under various test conditions. The results indicated that the required unit weight has been achieved with negligible change after 28days curing time in water. It is also recognized that the compressive strength of light-weight landfill materials linearly decrease with increasing initial water content, and the rate of strength decrease with increasing initial water content in water curing was smaller than that of air curing Futhermore, the rate of strength decreased with increasing initial water content, however, the rate become smaller as cement content increased.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.53-58
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• 2001

Constructions on the soft clay layer of low strength and high compression bring out many problems. Recent studies show that strength of the soft clay layer could be substantially improved by mixing quicklime. For the purpose, a series of uniaxial compression tests were performed, using quicklime, in order to analyze strength characteristics. The major test results are summarized following : When water content is 90%, the strength is observed to precipitously increase between 3～14 days, then, the extent slowly increase in relative terms. When water content is 130%, the strength is observed to precipitously increase up to 28 days. When the strength of water content 90% is compared to that of water content 130%, the initial strength of the former is higher than that of the latter. The analyses show that the improvement of soft clay layers can be realized by the mixture of both quicklime and sand, and by the mixture of quicklime only.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.317-323
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• 2018

BACKGROUND: This study was conducted to evaluate the water-dispersible clay content of paddy soils over the country in the summer rainy season as affected by cultivated years using heavy agro-machinery and soil properties such as texture and exchangeable sodium percentage. METHODS AND RESULTS: Water-dispersible clay content of 16 soil series of Korean paddy soils over the country were investigated in summer rainy season from July to August, 2006 by Middleton's method. Water-dispersible clay content ranged from non-detected to 4.8%, showing maximum value from the fine textured soils and high clay dispersibility in average from the coarse textured soils. Longer cultivated years using agro-machinery more than 40 hp result in higer water-dispersible clay content for 60% of studied paddy soils with less than 5% of exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP). Exceptionally, soils with relatively big difference of ESP at about 10 percent showed higher water-dispersible clay content with higher ESP. CONCLUSION: Long years of cultivation using agro-machinery with more than 40 hp enhanced water-dispersiblility of clay in approximately 60% of the studied paddy fields except for salt-affected soils.

• Food Science and Biotechnology
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.925-930
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• 2006

Chitosan-based nanocomposite films were prepared using a solution intercalation method incorporating varying amounts of organically modified montmorillonite (Cloisite 30B) from 0 to 30 wt%. The nanocomposite films prepared were optically clear despite a slight decrease in the transmittance due to the spatial distribution of nanoclay. X-ray diffraction patterns indicated that a certain degree of intercalation or exfoliation formed when the amount of clay in the film was low and that microscale tactoids formed when the clay content in the sample was high (more than 10 wt%). The tensile strength (TS) of the chitosan film increased when the clay was incorporated up to 10 wt% and then decreased with further increases in the clay content of the film. The elongation at break (E) increased slightly upon the addition of low levels of clay up to 5 wt% and then decreased with further increases in the amount of the clay in the film. The water vapor permeability (WVP) decreased exponentially with increasing clay content. The water solubility (WS) and swelling ratio (SR) of the nanocomposite films decreased slightly, indicating that the water resistance of the chitosan film increased due to the incorporation of the nanoclay.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.501-511
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• 2023

The strengthening efficiency of biopolymer treated soil depends on biopolymer type, concentration ratio, soil type, initial water content, curing time and mixing method. In this study, the physical and mechanical properties of xanthan gum (XG) treated kaolinite were investigated through compaction test, Atterberg limit test, triaxial test and unconfined compression test. The results indicated that the optimum water content (OWC) increased from 30.3% of untreated clay to 33.5% of 5% XG treated clay, while the maximum dry density has a slight increase from 13.96 kg/m³ to 14 kg/m³ of 0.2% XG treated clay and decrease to 2.7 kg/m³ of 5% XG treated clay. Meanwhile, the plastic limit of XG treated clay increased with the increase of XG concentration, while 0.5% XG treated clay can be observed the maximum liquid limit with 79.5%. Moreover, there are the ideal water content about 1.3-1.5 times of the optimum water content achieving the maximum dry density and curing time to obtain the maximum compressive strength for different XG contents, which the UCS is 1.52 and 2.07 times of the maximum UCS of untreated soil for 0.5% and 1% XG treated clay, respectively. In addition, hot-dry mixing can achieve highest UCS than other mixing methods (e.g., dry mixing, wet mixing and hot-wet mixing).

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.476-481
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• 2015

Water permeable block was manufactured using waste sewage sludge, loess and clay for the purpose of recycling waste sludge due to the prohibition of waste sludge ocean dumping. Experiments for determining optimum mixing ratio was conducted by changing sludge content in water permeable block as 5~20%. In respect of compressive strength, $1,600N/cm^2$ ($163.3kg/cm^2$) was obtained when the mixing ratio of sludge : loess : clay were maintained by 5% : 65% : 30%, 10% : 65% : 25% and 15% : 65% : 20%, respectively. These mean that relatively high compressive strength can be obtained when the sludge content is maintained 5, 10, 15% at the 65% of loess content. In terms of water permeability and absorption rate, the higher values can be obtained as the sludge content increases. The optimum mixing ratio of sludge : loess : clay came out to be 15% : 65% : 20% when water permeability, absorption and strength were considered altogether, which matches the result observed by an electron microscope. The heavy metal leaching test result of the prepared permeable block appeared to satisfy the environmental standard in the content of Cd, Cu, Pb and As.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.231-235
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• 2012

Plasticity is the ability of clay to respond to pressure with a continuous and permanent change of shape in any direction without breaking apart, and hold that shape when released. In this work, the effect of water content and aging period on the plasticity of porcelain clay was evaluated using the capillary rheometer to measure the flow rate and the shear stress. The shear stress of porcelain clay was slightly increased with increasing the aging period, indicating that the plasticity of porcelain clay was influenced by an organic content. It was also observed that the water content in the porcelain clay had a great influence on the plasticity of porcelain clay. The shear stress with water content of 21 wt% was sharply increased with increasing shear rate, but the shear stresses with water contents of 24 and 27 wt% is gently incremented.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.107-113
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• 2010

This paper presents the prediction of shear strength of oil contaminated clay using fall cone test used to determine the liquid limit of soil. The penetration depth of fall cone is related to water content of soil. Laboratory vane shear can also be related to water content. To explore the relative correlation between penetration depth of fall cone and laboratory vane shear, both fall cone tests and laboratory vane shear test were carried out with water contents of soil. The developed empirical relationships in this studys showed that the shear strength is reduced to 3.9% with 1% increase of oil content. And, the lesser initial water content of contaminated clay, the more shear strength of contaminated clay is affected by oil content.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.30 no.1C
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• pp.53-63
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• 2010

Since the water retention curve is considered as a major parameter to evaluate the unsaturated ground or soils, overburden pressure and clay content on soils underneath ground surface have not been considered for estimating water retention characteristics. Therefore, a need exists that the effect of overburden pressure and clay content on water retention characteristics was assessed in typical weathered soils found in Korea. Soil-Water Characteristic Curve and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity were estimated using water retention characteristics under the condition of different overburden pressure, clay content, and de-saturation path. Then, these effects are evaluated with the results of SWCC tests from the laboratory. In addition to that, the unsaturated moisture capacity and diffusivity of each case is discussed.