查看文章

Curling is a common phenomenon occurring in nature soils due to the rearrangement of soil particles during the desiccation process. The occurrence of curling in soils is generally associated with desiccation cracking, which can cause significant damages to geo-infrastructures such as slopes, embankments and pavements. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms of soil curling is vital to deal with key issues, which are relevant to many applications in geotechnical engineering. In this paper, experimental and numerical studies are conducted to provide insights into mechanisms of soil curling induced by moisture evaporations. The discrete element method (DEM) with a new water particle concept is proposed to facilitate the modelling of process, while an artificial clay made of kaolin is adopted in the experiment. Experimental results show that the drying process is separated into three stages: a constant evaporation rate stage, a falling evaporation rate stage and an equilibrium evaporation rate stage. The upward curling is initiated even when the specimen stage is close to the liquid limit stage. Comparison between experiments and simulations suggested that the proposed modelling approach can capture the initiation and development of the upward curling in clay soils, and it is a promising approach to studying soil curling phenomenon.