The Investigation of Freezing-Thawing Effects on Physico-Mechanical Properties of Cohesive Soils

Abstract

An apprehending of freezing and thawing effects on cohesive soil is considerable for many construction and environmental subjects. This paper relates the effects of freezing and thawing on physico-mechanical behavior of clayey soils. The capital city of Turkey, Ankara, is located in sequence of lacustrine sediments. At places these sediments contain fine grain soils. Collected undisturbed samples were high placticity clay and clayey sand that were obtained from the bottom of a construction zone at about 1m depth under the ground surface. Total of 64 molded samples were prepared with constant water content to reflect the moisture condition in the active surface layer. CH and SC soil were analyzed in the laboratory, and found to have the plastic limits (PL) of 33.01% and 22.56%, the liquid limits (LL) of 75.05% and 36.97%, and the plasticity indexes (PI) of 42.04% and 14.41%. The soil samples were classified as “CH” and “SC” by the unified soil classification system.