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Influence of drainage and root biomass on soil mechanical behavior in triaxial tests

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Abstract

This paper presents a study in which triaxial tests were performed on loess soil reinforced with natural roots. Triaxial compression tests were performed on soil specimens with root biomass of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.25% and subsequently consolidated at various confining stresses under drained and undrained conditions. The results are presented in terms of monotonic stress–strain behavior, volumetric behavior, failure envelope, and shear strength parameters. The test results showed that the inclusion of roots required higher confining stress to prevent failure. The reinforced specimen showed continued mobilization of dilatancy in drained and undrained conditions and resulted in exhibiting higher peak deviator stress compared to the unreinforced specimen. The specimen with the lowest root biomass exhibited the least increments in the hardening response, while the specimen with the largest root biomass showed the highest hardening response. The addition of roots decreased the contractancy of soil in both drained and undrained condition. Under the same root content and confining pressure, the shear strength in an undrained condition is much higher as compared to drained conditions. The largest improvement in soil's mechanical behavior was observed at smaller confining pressure, i.e., 100 kPa in both drained and undrained conditions. The addition of roots also increases the initial yielding of the soil, which is the function of roots biomass. The output of this research will provide a foundation for the future development of the predictive constitutive model for soil–root composite and its applications to slope stability.

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Acknowledgements

This research work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDA23090202] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42172320). The authors acknowledge the Chinese Academy of Sciences Pioneer Hundred Talents Program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Labratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Processes, Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, CAS, Chengdu, 610041, China

    Mehtab Alam, Yuan-Jun Jiang, Li-jun Su & Faheem Ullah

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    Mehtab Alam, Yuan-Jun Jiang, Li-jun Su & Faheem Ullah

  3. Department of Civil Engineering, National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan

    Muhammad Umar

  4. CAS Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Bei**g, 100101, China

    Li-jun Su

  5. Department of Civil Engineering, International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, Dhaka, 1230, Bangladesh

    Mahfuzur Rahman

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  1. Mehtab Alam
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Correspondence to Yuan-Jun Jiang.

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Alam, M., Jiang, YJ., Umar, M. et al. Influence of drainage and root biomass on soil mechanical behavior in triaxial tests. Acta Geotech. 17, 2875–2893 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-021-01380-w

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