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Retention behaviour of natural clayey materials at different temperatures

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Abstract

The water retention capacity of geomaterials, and especially clayey soils, is sensitive to temperature changes as the physical mechanisms of retention, such as capillarity or adsorption, are affected by it. It is therefore a major issue to be able to define temperature-dependent behaviour of materials, especially for geo-energy and geo-environmental applications involving non-isothermal conditions. This paper presents results of experiments conducted on two representative materials: a hard clay (Opalinus clay) and a plastic clay (Boom clay), both of which have been considered as buffer materials for underground radioactive waste disposal, in Switzerland and Belgium, respectively. Two new devices were developed for this purpose to permit the analysis of water retention behaviour at different temperatures. The behaviour of these two materials at ambient (20 °C) and high temperature (80 °C) was observed and described through the evolution of the degree of saturation, the water content and the void ratio with respect to suction. It appears that the retention capability of the clays reduces significantly with an increase in temperature; on the other hand, the change in temperature had less of an effect on the total volume variation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Swiss National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA) and the European Commission through the TIMODAZ Project for funding and supporting this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Soil Mechanics, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 18, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    L. Laloui & M. Rizzi

  2. UJF-Grenoble 1, Grenoble-INP, CNRS UMR 5521, 3SR Laboratory, 38041, Grenoble, France

    S. Salager

  3. King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    L. Laloui

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  1. L. Laloui
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  2. S. Salager
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  3. M. Rizzi
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Correspondence to L. Laloui.

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Laloui, L., Salager, S. & Rizzi, M. Retention behaviour of natural clayey materials at different temperatures. Acta Geotech. 8, 537–546 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-013-0255-2

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