Experimental Testing and Numerical Simulations for Typical Swelling Soil in Egypt
Ashraf El-Shamy1, Yasser El-Mossallamy2, Khalid Abdel-Rahman3, Hossam Eldin Ali4

1Ashraf El-Shamy*, Department of Civil Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. E-mail: Ashraf.
2Yasser El-Mossallamy, Department of Civil Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
3Khalid Abdel-Rahman, Department for Underground Construction, Institute for Geotechnical Engineering, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany.
4Hossam Eldin Ali, Department of Civil Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Manuscript received on 16 August 2019. | Revised Manuscript received on 20 August 2019. | Manuscript published on 30 September 2019. | PP: 4101-4111 | Volume-8 Issue-3 September 2019 | Retrieval Number: C5470098319/2019©BEIESP | DOI: 10.35940/ijrte.C5470.098319
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Abstract: Swelling soils exist in many developing urban regions in egypt. Most of these urban regions have new huge developments under constructions. The structures constructed on these swelling soils may be exposed to high damage if any significant change in the moisture content of these swelling soils occures, so the presence of such swelling soils represents a significant hazard. Investigation the behaviour of these swelling soils as well as determination of their swelling parameters has become highly necessary. In this paper, intensive experimental testing program has been conducted on some soil samples collected from some of these regions to determine their swelling parameters. Through this experimental testing program, oedometer swell test has been firstly conducted on same soil with two different techniques; namely different pressure method and huder-amberg method. The procedures and obtained results of the two used methods are discussed and compared showing advantages and shortages of each method. After that, all subsequent experimental tests were perfomred using huder-amberg method as it demonstrated high superiority in determining swelling parameters. Grob’s 1d swelling law was applied to all obtained experimental results to give exact and complete determination for all swelling parameters. Furthermore, swelling soil has been simulated numerically via the new user-defined swelling constitutive model which has been recently implemented for the finite element software plaxis. The suitability of this model to simulate the performance of swelling soil is verified by conducting a numerical simulation to one of the huder-amberg oedometer tests through the oedometer soil test facility available in plaxis software. Finally, based on the above-selected experimental approach, swelling parameters were determined from the experimental tests conducted on different soil samples collected from some selected arid/semi-arid regions in egypt. Such test results were summarized and presented as a useful key-parameters of these swelling soils which can be used as pre-determined inputs in any further numerical analyses.
Keywords: Swelling Soil, Oedometer Test, Huder-Amberg Method, Grob’s 1D Swelling Law, Swelling Constitutive Model, Numerical Simulation, Swelling Parameters.

Scope of the Article: Geotechnical Engineering