The Effect of Heavy Metal Contaminants on the Strength Parameters of Sandy Clay

Desirable physical and behavioral characteristics of clay soils have resulted in their wide usage in engineering landfills. Clay soils are able to interact with the materials in contaminants thanks to their special mineral structure and adsorb part or all of the hazardous materials present in the leachate leaked in them. Previous studies have shown that changes in the physical and chemical characteristics of pore fluid in soil, given the type of minerals clay soils and the soil structure, significantly influence the properties of soil engineering including shear parameters, the extent of swell, and water adsorption percentage. The aim of this research is to study the effect of heavy metal contaminants on some strength and geotechnical parameters of sandy clays. For this purpose, following preparation of the samples, adsorption and direct shear experiments along with determination of the liquid limit were performed on the samples which had been exposed to the heavy metal contaminants of Pb and Zn. The results indicated that across the three studied clay types (the mixed sand kaolinite samples with different sand percentages), with the increase in the concentration of both contaminants, soil cohesion diminishes, while the internal friction angle of the samples was not affected by presence of heavy metal contaminants. When concentration of Zn increases to 25 cmmol, cohesion of samples with 90% and 60% of kaolinite decreased 20% and 23% respectively. While in the presence of Pb decrease in cohesion is 42% and 51%.