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Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment

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01-01-2024 | Original Paper

A quantitative study on the characteristics of desiccation cracks and their effect on the shear failure characteristics of granite red soil

Authors: Yue Zhang, Yimin Huang, Zumei Wang, Menglu Shi, Jinshi Lin, Fangshi Jiang, Hongli Ge, Yanhe Huang

Published in: Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment | Issue 1/2024

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Abstract

Soil cracks thoroughly affect the soil shear strength, which is a critical parameter in the analysis and modeling of slope stability. However, the relationship between soil cracks and shear strength in collapsing gullies remains inadequately studied. In this study, soil collected from collapsing gully areas was used to quantitatively investigate the parameters of soil desiccation cracks and the effects of soil cracks on shear strength. The results showed that the development degree of soil cracks increased gradually with decreasing soil water content. During desiccation, surface crack evolution was dominated by the formation of more cracks when soil water content was higher than 20%, and then experienced crack width extension for at lower soil water content. Three-dimensional crack analysis showed that cracks in the undisturbed soil of the red soil layer were very densely developed, and the cracks rates were all greater than 9%. Soil water content and cracks controlled the shear failure characteristics under triaxial compression, and the characteristics of soil shear failure can be summarized into three categories: composite softened soil, ideal elastoplastic soil, and curve-softened soil. The shear strength (τ_c) of undisturbed red soil samples had significant negative correlations with the crack rate (CR), total crack length (CL), crack connectivity (CC), and crack fractal dimension (FD). Linear fitting analysis showed that the effect of cracks on soil shear strength could be described as follows: τ_c = 1548.8−22.4 × WR−2.67 × CR−4.65×CC, which is helpful for the numerical simulation analysis of the stability of collapsing gully walls.

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Title: A quantitative study on the characteristics of desiccation cracks and their effect on the shear failure characteristics of granite red soil
Authors: Yue Zhang
Yimin Huang
Zumei Wang
Menglu Shi
Jinshi Lin
Fangshi Jiang
Hongli Ge
Yanhe Huang
Publication date: 01-01-2024
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment / Issue 1/2024
Print ISSN: 1435-9529
Electronic ISSN: 1435-9537
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-023-03524-6

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