Engineering property of kaolin clay contaminated by diesel oil was studied through a series of laboratory experiments.Oil contents(mass fraction) of 4%,8%,12%,16% and 20% were selected to represent different contamination degrees,and the soil specimens were manually prepared through mixing and static compaction method.Initial water content and dry density of the test kaolin clay were controlled at 10% and 1.58 g/cm^3,respectively.Test results indicate that since part of the diesel oil will be released from soil by evaporation,the real water content should be derived through calibration of the quasi water content obtained by traditional test method.As contamination degree of the kaolin clay increases,both liquid limit and plastic limit decrease,but there's only a slight increase for plasticity index.Swelling pressure of contaminated kaolin clay under confined condition will be lowered when oil-content gets higher.Unconfined compressive strength(UCS) of the oil-contaminated kaolin clay is influenced by not only oil content but also curing period.Increase of contamination degree will continually lower UCS of the kaolin clay specimen.In addition,electrical resistivity of the contaminated kaolin clay with given water content decreases with the increase of oil content.However,soil resistivity is in good relationship with oil content and UCS.Finally,oil content of 8% is found to be a critical value for engineering property of kaolin clay to transit from water-dominated towards oil-dominated characteristics.
Soil-bentonite (SB) vertical slurry cutoff wall is a useful treatment for urban industrial contaminated sites. Due to the clay heavy metal interaction, significant changes would occur in the engineering behavior of SB cutoff walls. However, previous study is limited to kaolinitic soils or montmorillonitic soils along using solidum chloride and/or calcium chloride as target contaminant. In this work, a series of oedometer tests were conducted to investigate the effects of lead (Pb) on the compressibility and the permeability of kaolin-bentonite (KB) mixtures, a simplified model of in-situ SB cutoff wall backfills. In addition, sedimentation tests were conducted to interpret the mechanism controlling the change of compressibility and permeability from the perspective of soil fabric. The Pb-contaminated KB mixtures for oedometer tests and sedimentation tests were prepared with bentonite contents of 0, 5%, 10%, and 15% by dry mass, and they were mixed with pre-determined volume of lead nitrate solution based on designed Pb concentration and solid-to-solution ratio. The Pb concentration was controlled as 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 5.0, 10, and 50 mg/g with a solid-to-solution ratio of approximate 0.5. The prepared KB mixtures with bentonite contents of 0, 5%, and 10% were chosen for the sedimentation tests. They were freeze-dried and mixed with DDI with a solid-to-solution ratio of 10 g/100 mL. The results indicate that pH, compressibility, and permeability of KB mixture changed considerably with respect to Pb concentration. It is concluded that the fabric of KB mixture, depending on the particle particle interaction subjected to different ranges of pH and Pb concentration, governs the sedimentation behavior and permeability. The results of liquid limit (wL ) cannot be explained in terms of the sedimentation behavior since it is only ionic-dependent.
