Physical and Mechanical Behaviors of Compacted Soils under Hydraulic Loading of Wetting-Drying Cycles

Exposed geo-infrastructures filled with compacted soils experience cyclic wetting-drying effects due to environment and underground water fluctuations. Soil physical and mechanical behaviors are prone to deterioration to a great extent, e.g., swelling, collapse, or even slope failure, resulting in huge losses to human life, safety, and engineering construction. In this paper, hydraulic loading tests of wetting-drying cycles were carried out on compacted fine soil via a one-dimensional pressure plate apparatus equipped with bender elements. The influences of wetting-drying paths on the soil characteristics of moisture content, void ratio and shear modulus were obtained and analyzed. Results showed that cyclic wetting-drying effects weakened the soil's water retention capacity. It was observed that it was harder for pore water to approach saturation at a lower matric suction level and to be expelled at a higher matric suction level. Typical swelling and shrinkage deformations occurred during the hydraulic loading processes, and volume expansion was generated after the drying-wetting cycles at a given value of matric suction, which deteriorated the densely compacted soils to a relatively looser state. Then, a unified soil-water characteristic surface was proposed to describe the unique relationships of moisture content, void ratio, and matric suction. Moreover, the small-strain shear modulus of the soil, in terms of shear wave velocity, was reduced by 32.2-35.5% and 13.8-25.8% at the same degree of saturation during the first and second wetting paths, respectively. Therefore, the volume expansion and modulus degradation resulting from the wetting-drying cycles should attract particular attention to avoid further distresses in the practical engineering.