Influence of Temperature on Desiccation Cracking of Clay Soil

Drying of soils and shrinkage cracks is a crucial issue in geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering. Better understanding of the soil cracking process is essential in analyzing desiccation effects on buildings integrity. In this study, cracking behavior of the clay due to desiccation investigated experimentally at different temperatures on thin clay layer. Experimental tests carried out on the clay slurry saturated with water content about 60%, (1.5 times of its liquid limit). In this study, the clay supplied from clay mine in Abadeh, a city in Fars province in Iran.
Experimental results showed that the critical water content, which corresponds to the initiation of desiccation crack increases when the temperature rises. In addition, the number of produced cracks decreases by increasing the temperature. This phenomenon can be attributed to the reduction of water surface tension force or voids central tendency in soil mass. Also, the width of crack opening decreases by increasing the temperature.