Heating-induced stabilization of weak clayey soils: A model incorporating pore water evaporation

Abstract

To strengthen a problematic clayey soil foundation, we proposed a heating system utilizing a modified heat transfer equation that considers the rapid evaporation of pore water due to high temperatures and accounts for latent heat. The modified equation was compared with results from commercial software and indoor model experiments, with its parameters evaluated through statistical and sensitivity analyses. The results demonstrated that the changes in parameters over time due to pore water evaporation and latent heat transfer exhibited behavior similar to the experimental results. Additionally, the sensitivity analysis revealed that the initial temperature condition exhibited the highest sensitivity at 18.44 %, while the bulk density showed the lowest sensitivity at 0.18 %. Therefore, the accurate temperature measurement for initial conditions is necessary for precise heat transfer analysis using the modified equation. Moreover, parameters such as water content, clay content, and shrinkage ratio should be determined through precise experiments, although applying average values yielded results within an error range of approximately 7 %. Finally, the experimental results showed a 267 % increase in resistance before and after heating to 600 ℃ in the cone penetration test.