Loading...

Three-Dimensional Coupled Thermo-Hydraulic Modeling of Desiccation-Cracked Clay with Focus on Crack Geometry Effects

Valipour, Mehdi | 2025

0 Viewed
  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 58242 (09)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Civil Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Sadeghi, Hamed
  7. Abstract:
  8. Soil–atmosphere interaction plays a crucial role in the behavior of soils at shallow depths. Climate change and global warming are increasingly affecting soil behavior. Climatic fluctuations, along with related phenomena such as evaporation and precipitation, influence the moisture and temperature variations within soil. When fine-grained, highly plastic soils such as expansive clays are exposed to drying and the induced tensile stress exceeds the soil’s tensile strength, desiccation cracks form. These cracks initiate and propagate in three dimensions, creating a 3D network of cracks. The three-dimensional geometry of these desiccation-induced cracks significantly influences the thermo-hydraulic behavior of cracked clay. Therefore, in this study, the 3D distribution of moisture flow regimes and thermal conductivity in cracked clay layers was investigated and compared with the uncracked condition under coupled thermo-hydraulic conditions. A parametric numerical analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of crack geometry, including length and intersection angle. For the coupled thermo-hydraulic analyses, the finite element software CODE_BRIGHT was employed. The results revealed considerable differences in flow regimes and thermal behavior between cracked layers with varying crack intersection angles and lengths. Moreover, the influence of crack length on the soil water retention curve was assessed. The findings showed that increasing crack length reduces the soil's water retention capacity due to enhanced interaction with the atmosphere. Finally, simplified curves were proposed to estimate variations in the degree of saturation in desiccation-cracked clay layers based on crack intensity factor and depth
  9. Keywords:
  10. Soil-Atmosphere Interaction ; Crack Geometry ; Soil Desiccation Cracking ; Coupled Numerical Analysis ; Soil-Water Retention Curve

 Digital Object List

 Bookmark

No TOC