Dispersion and stability of fine-grained soils under different pretreatments based on the particle size distribution
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SOILS, SEC 1 • SOIL ORGANIC MATTER DYNAMICS AND NUTRIENT CYCLING • RESEARCH ARTICLE
Dispersion and stability of fine-grained soils under different pretreatments based on the particle size distribution Ruina Lu 1,2 & Renwang Liang 1 & Wei Duan 3 Received: 3 March 2020 / Accepted: 28 May 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose Particle size distribution (PSD) has been extensively used to evaluate the properties of the soil. The PSD curve is influenced by soil pretreatments. This study intends to evaluate the quantitative effect of sample pretreatment on the PSD of the soil. Methods In this study, the sieving-hydrometer method was employed for determining the mass PSD of soils. Four different soil pretreatment methods were adopted, i.e., non-treated, boiling only, sodium hexametaphosphate only, and a combination of boiling and sodium hexametaphosphate. The implications of the sample pretreatments were evaluated based on the fine fractal dimension (Df). Results and discussion The samples treated using boiling and sodium hexametaphosphate exhibited the highest Df among all the samples. The Df of the sample was obviously enhanced after it was pretreated using sodium hexametaphosphate (p < 0.01). The surface tension of the solution decreased drastically; thus, the settling of fine fraction in the existing dispersant was hindered. However, the boiling pretreatment alone did not significantly affect the obtained results (p > 0.01). Regardless, the results obtained via a pretreatment in which boiling and sodium hexametaphosphate were both used denoted that the dispersion effect of sodium hexametaphosphate could be enhanced by boiling; furthermore, boiling and sodium hexametaphosphate improved the fitting degree of the power law function (p < 0.01). Conclusion The results of this study prove that sodium hexametaphosphate is an efficient dispersant, which would promote the dispersion effect when used in combination with boiling. The mechanisms responsible for the dispersing and stabilizing effects of sodium hexametaphosphate are verified based on the behaviors of ion exchange and micelle formation in the suspensions. Keywords Fine-grained soil . Particle size distribution . Pretreatments . Fine fractal dimension
1 Introduction Particle size distribution (PSD), which is the most basic nature of the soil, influences many other important properties. It is usually employed to evaluate the chemical and mineral
Responsible editor: Weixin Ding * Renwang Liang [email protected] 1
College of Civil Engineering, Taiyuan University of Technology, 79#, West Yingze Avenue, Wanbailin District, Taiyuan 030024, China
2
School of Electric Power, Civil Engineer and Architecture, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030013, China
3
College of Civil Engineer, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
compositions (Murashkina et al. 2007), pedogenesis (Sun et al. 2018), erosion (Wang et al. 2008; Xu et al. 2013), desertification (Su et al. 2004; Feng et al. 2020), and shear strength (Lu et al.
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