Fine-grained, more or less cohesive carbonate materials are extremely widespread in terms of surface area and are, therefore, commonly used as materials to construct impermeable cores for dams. However, it has not been adequately documented whether the carbonate content in fine-grained soils significantly affects their engineering behaviour. The present study shows that the carbonate content substantially influences the engineering behaviour of clayey material. For this, we subjected 32 samples to different laboratory tests, such as the normal Proctor, the Atterberg limits, granulometric analysis, oedometric and undrained triaxial tests. The resulting parameters were correlated with the carbonate content of the samples.
The materials studied in this work had been used in the construction of the impermeable core of the San Clemente Dam, belonging to the hydrographic basin of the Guadalquivir River (southern Spain). These marls present, as their prime characteristic, a carbonate content of the fine fraction consistently exceeding 50%, giving them special importance in the study of this phenomenon.
In this study, a direct relationship was found between the geotechnical properties of the soils studied and their degree of compaction, with the carbonate content and the type of minerals in the clay being the main factors determining the behaviour of these soils. Finally, we conclude that the percentage of carbonates should be used as a classification criterion for the soils used to construct the cores of earth-filled dams. 相似文献
We present particle size data from 31 samples of carbonate cataclastic rocks collected across the 26 m thick fault core of the Mattinata Fault in the foreland of the Southern Apennines, Italy. Particle size distributions of incoherent samples were determined by a sieving-and-weighting technique. The number of weight-equivalent spherical particles by size is well fitted by a power-law function on a log–log space. Fractal dimensions (D) of particle size distributions are in the 2.091–2.932 range and cluster around the value of 2.5. High D-values pertain to gouge in shear bands reworking the bulk cataclastic rocks of the fault core. Low D-values characterise immature cataclastic breccias. Intermediate D-values are typical of the bulk fault core. Analysis of the ratio between corresponding equivalent particle numbers from differently evolved cataclastic rocks indicates that the development of particle size distributions with D>2.6–2.7 occurred by a preferential relative increase of fine particles rather than a selective decrement of coarse particles. This preferentially occurred in shear bands where intense comminution enhanced by slip localisation progressed by rolling of coarse particles whose consequent smoothing produced a large number of fine particles. Our data suggest that during the progression of cataclasis, the fragmentation mode changed from the Allègre et al.'s [Nature 297 (1982) 47] “pillar of strength” mechanism in the early evolutionary stages, to the Sammis et al.'s [Pure and Applied Geophysics 125 (1987) 777] “constrained comminution” mechanism in the subsequent stages of cataclasis. Eventually, localised shear bands developed mainly by abrasion of coarse particles. 相似文献