Shrinking–swelling of clay under the effect of hydric cycles

Views the scarcity of building sites, the urban development on soils with problems such as swelling soils, causes the damage to lightweight structures, as a sewerage networks, shod, etc. These damages are often classified in the low risk category. However, the neglect of these disorders can create geotechnical problems, much more complicated, with high risk, as a land motion. This case of disorders has been recording in several regions in Algeria, as example: Ain Defla, Boumerdes, and Medea, which is the studied case in this paper. The geotechnical study and the swelling tests on undisturbed and remolded samples, indicate the presence of a high swelling clay layer, of about 3–4 m deep. This research focuses on the evolution of the phenomenon of shrinking and swelling under the effect of a set of parameters existing in situ, such as climate cycles (alternating between winter and summer) and the effect of soil saturation mode. In this work, two modes are studied: saturation by infiltration and saturation by capillary. The results analysis shows the remolding of samples structure and the loss of their initial mechanical and physical properties. The test results justify the observed disorder on the site such as the erosion of foundation soils under the effect of the flow of surface water, and landslide triggering, affecting the whole of the site, and endanger the university campus located on this site. © 2016, Springer International Publishing Switzerland.