Evolution of Tensile Properties of Compacted Red Clay under Wet and Dry Cycles

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Tensile strength is an important soil parameter that affects the stability of structures built on clayey soils. This paper presents an experimental study of the change of tensile properties of red clay during wet-dry cycles. Cyclic wet-dry tests were performed on compacted red clay specimens with different initial water contents and dry densities. Direct tensile tests and Brazilian split tests were then conducted on these specimens to determine the soil strengths. The effects of initial water content, initial dry density, number of wet-dry cycles, and crack rate on the tensile properties of red clay were investigated. The results demonstrate that the tensile strength of red clay is generally 1.566 times the splitting strength. Both the tensile strength and splitting strength are negatively correlated with the initial water content but are positively correlated with the initial dry density. Because of the presence of desiccation cracks, the tensile strength goes on reducing under wet-dry cycles. The tensile strength can be expressed by a power function of the initial water content, initial dry density, and crack rate. The proposed equation is useful to evaluate the tensile strength of cracked soils subjected to wet-dry cycles.