Micro-fabric transformation of Taleqan white clay under constant volume swelling condition

Expansiveness has been widely discussed for a long time The stress deformation response of swelling soils is intimately associated with several factors including clay mineralogy soil fabric, and geochemistry of the pore fluid What presently is lacking is research on the changes of micro-fabric due to the swelling volume changes As a basis for tackling the swelling problem we need a better understanding of the swelling mechanism at the micro-scale and we need to engage with the micro-fabric transformation which is a gap in the knowledge To explore the swelling-induced changes in particles geometric arrangement a series of constant volume (CV) swelling tests (ASTM D 4546) were performed on clay specimens of wide range of plasticity Pre- and post-swelled specimens were scanned and snapshot at low magnifications (250x 500x) in General fabric level and medium magnifications (1000x 2000x) in intermediate fabric level (C) 2010 Elsevier B V All rights reserved