SHEAR STRENGTH OF AN UNSATURATED LOESS SOIL REINFORCED BY POTASSUM SILICATE UPON SATURATION

摘要

Although Potassium Silicate (PS) solution has been applied to reinforce ancient earth-made architectures and structures in arid regions located in the northwest of China in recent years.Some technical challenges are still required to be further studied.One great concern problem is the performance of PS reinforced loess soil after rainfall.In this study,unconsolidated undrained (UU) shear tests were carried out on PS reinforced loess soil from the Ancient City of Jiaohe.Soil specimens were initially reinforced by different PS solutions and then were subjected to saturation before UU tests.Specimens reinforced by 3%PS and 7%PS show higher peak shear strength by 90% and 360%,respectively,as compared with unreinforced specimens.The addition of 3%PS and 7%PS einforcement also results in higher residual shear strength by about 50% and 250%,respectively.These results show that PS reinforcement is still effective when subjected to saturation due to rainfall.