TY - JOUR
T1 - Desiccation cracking of soils
T2 - A review of investigation approaches, underlying mechanisms, and influencing factors
AU - Tang, Chao Sheng
AU - Zhu, Cheng
AU - Cheng, Qing
AU - Zeng, Hao
AU - Xu, Jin Jian
AU - Tian, Ben Gang
AU - Shi, Bin
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - The purpose of this paper is to review the development and the state of the art in desiccation cracking characterization methods and review the desiccation cracking behaviors of soils. The review begins by briefly introducing in Section 1 the influences of desiccation cracking on soil properties and the significance of studying this topic. Section 2 summarizes the past and existing experimental approaches that have been invented and adopted for soil desiccation cracking investigations at both laboratory and field scales. Various theoretical frameworks formulated to account for the underlying cracking mechanisms are presented in Section 3. Section 4 shows the implementation of theoretical frameworks into mesh-based and mesh-free numerical tools to capture the initiation, propagation, and coalescence of desiccation cracks. Section 5 describes the crack dynamics in desiccating soils, with emphases placed on the coupled process of water evaporation, suction increase, and volume shrinkage, and the crack network evolution. Section 6 discusses major influencing factors of soil desiccation cracking covering soil intrinsic properties, boundary constraints, environmental conditions, and soil admixtures. Finally, a brief summary and proposed prospective research works are presented in Sections 7.
AB - The purpose of this paper is to review the development and the state of the art in desiccation cracking characterization methods and review the desiccation cracking behaviors of soils. The review begins by briefly introducing in Section 1 the influences of desiccation cracking on soil properties and the significance of studying this topic. Section 2 summarizes the past and existing experimental approaches that have been invented and adopted for soil desiccation cracking investigations at both laboratory and field scales. Various theoretical frameworks formulated to account for the underlying cracking mechanisms are presented in Section 3. Section 4 shows the implementation of theoretical frameworks into mesh-based and mesh-free numerical tools to capture the initiation, propagation, and coalescence of desiccation cracks. Section 5 describes the crack dynamics in desiccating soils, with emphases placed on the coupled process of water evaporation, suction increase, and volume shrinkage, and the crack network evolution. Section 6 discusses major influencing factors of soil desiccation cracking covering soil intrinsic properties, boundary constraints, environmental conditions, and soil admixtures. Finally, a brief summary and proposed prospective research works are presented in Sections 7.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103586
DO - 10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103586
M3 - Review article
SN - 0012-8252
VL - 216
JO - Earth-Science Reviews
JF - Earth-Science Reviews
M1 - 103586
ER -