Numerical Simulation of the Effect of Void Direction and Volume on the Strength of Cemented Soil

Abstract A void can be formed or expanded in a weakly cemented in situ soil because of multiple reasons such as abandoned old pipes and eroding of fine particles caused by pipe leakage. Such void formation can develop into various directions and amounts of volumes, which can influence the engineerin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of geomechanics 2021-12, Vol.22 (3)
Main Authors: Park, Sung-Sik, Tran, Dong-Kiem-Lam, Doan, Nhat-Phi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bonding strength
Compressive strength
Direction
Discrete element method
Edge dislocations
Horizontal orientation
Mathematical models
Sand
Shear bands
Simulation
Soil
Soil erosion
Soil investigations
Soil strength
Soils
Technical Papers
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Summary:Abstract A void can be formed or expanded in a weakly cemented in situ soil because of multiple reasons such as abandoned old pipes and eroding of fine particles caused by pipe leakage. Such void formation can develop into various directions and amounts of volumes, which can influence the engineering behavior of in situ soils. In this study, a distinct element method was employed to quantitatively investigate the effect of such void formation on the strength of cemented soil. An empty capsule was vertically or horizontally embedded in cemented sand for void simulation, which was tested for its unconfined compressive strength (UCS). The experiment result was used to calibrate the built-in bonded particle model in PFC2D computer code. The effect of void formation direction and volume on the strength of cemented soils was numerically investigated in terms of UCS. Consequently, the UCS of cemented sand significantly decreased up to 64% as embedded capsules changed from the vertical to the horizontal direction. The UCS of cemented sand linearly decreased down to 63.2% as the number of capsules increased from 1 to 4. The decrease in strength was because the void area disconnected the shear bands—explicitly represented as broken bonds—and trapped the distributed stress inside the layers between capsules, resulting in a lower strength of the specimens.
ISSN:1532-3641
1943-5622
DOI:10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0002319