Practical guidelines on the determination of one-dimensional swell properties of highly expansive clays
Author(s)
Murison, Ruan A
Gaspar, Tiago AV
Jacobsz, SW
Heymann, Gerhard
Osman, Ashraf S
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Engineers typically require two parameters for the understanding of expansive soils to limit damages invoked by volume change: the swell pressure – the stress required to completely restrain volume change upon inundation – and the swell potential – the volume increase exhibited upon inundation at a given stress level. These properties have been shown to be dependent on the stress path followed during their measurement in the laboratory. This creates challenges for practitioners attempting to obtain reliable swell properties without an extensive testing programme. A discussion of the stress path-dependency and reasons for variations of the measured swell properties within a Barcelona Extended Model (BExM) framework is given. Series of oedometer tests following three standard methods for the determination of swell pressure and swell potential were carried out for two highly expansive clay soils with different microfabric types. After swell phases, samples were consolidated to high stresses (up to 4 MPa). For both soils, the magnitudes of the swell properties relative to one another, when measured using the different experimental methods, aligned with the predicted hierarchy according to the theoretical framework. This verifies the suitability of the framework for both microfabric types. The insights gained from the test results and theoretical framework were used to design a minimum testing programme for practitioners, allowing robust determination of the swell pressure and swell potential of a given clay.
Date Issued
2025-11-27
Date Acceptance
2025-09-16
Citation
Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2025, 62
ISSN
0008-3674
Publisher
Canadian Science Publishing
Journal / Book Title
Canadian Geotechnical Journal
Volume
62
Copyright Statement
© 2025 The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2025-11-27