Investigating the dynamic characteristics of crack formation of Jiangxi lateritic soil subjected to drying-wetting cycles

作者：Yu Su, Peng Zeng, Wenliang Yao, Jianglin Gao, Chuang-Bing Zhou, Junyi Duan, Yue Zhang, Bo Han, Wenzhe Zhu, Tianpeng Chen, Weiping Liu, Yan Li · 发表于：Journal of Safety and Sustainability · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.jsasus.2025.06.005 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Landslides and related hazards、Soil and Unsaturated Flow、Climate change and permafrost

Earth dams using Jiangxi lateritic soil have been widely constructed in Jiangxi Province, China. Field observations showed uneven settlements and cracks on the earth dams, which was attributed to the dynamic water-level fluctuation in the reservoir. Under this circumstance, the initiation and propagation of cracks of Jiangxi lateritic soil can be accelerated by the drying-wetting cycles, threatening the safety and stability of Earth dams. For this reason, the dynamic characteristics of cracks of Jiangxi lateritic soil under drying-wetting (D-W) cycles and its microstructure mechanism were investigated in this study, with a maximum number N = 5 cycles considered. The microstructure of Jiangxi lateritic soil was measured using mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tests, and its effect on the cracks patterns was quantitatively investigated through image processing technique. The results showed that: (i)The drying-induced desiccation cracks with increasing N was divided into three stages: the crack-generating stage ( N = 0 ∼ 1), the crack-propagating stage ( N = 1 ∼ 3) and the crack-stable stage ( N = 3 ∼ 5). The cracks initiation and propagation was strongly related to the microstructure damage (e.g. aggregate decomposition and pore expansion), which was resulted from the applied D-W cycles. With the penetration of large pores, the cracks were generated; (ii) The wetting-induced healing behavior was categorized into two zones: the first zone...