Effect of sand on the vacuum consolidation of dredged slurry

Vacuum preloading is often used to improve the geotechnical properties of dredged slurry. Although the performance of this method has improved with rapidly developing technology, soil columns usually formed on the drainage boundary induce the decrease of permeability around the boundary, thereby limiting the further development of this method. To address this issue, this paper proposes a method for pretreating the slurry combined with sand prior to vacuum consolidation. This method partially replaces the fine particles with sand to reduce the formation of soil columns. Two groups of vacuum preloading tests were performed to investigate the effect of sand content and sand grain size on the vacuum consolidation of dredged slurry. The test results revealed that for a given sand grain size, increasing the sand content of the sand–slurry mixture increased the pore water drainage and accelerated the dissipation of pore water pressure, thereby increasing the vane shear strength. In contrast, for a constant sand content, the samples containing coarse sand exhibited increased pore water drainage and accelerated dissipation of pore water pressure, thereby increasing the vane shear strength of the soil.     

Explicit stress–strain equations for modeling frictional materials

In this paper, a comprehensive study on simulating the shearing behavior of frictional materials is performed. A set of two explicit equations, describing the relationship among the shear stress ratio and the distortional strain and the volumetric strain, are formulated independently. The equations contain three stress parameters and three strain parameters and another parameter representing the nonuniformity of stress and strain during softening. All the parameters have clear physical significance and can be determined experimentally. It is demonstrated that the proposed equations have the capacity of simulating the complicated shearing behavior of many types of frictional materials including geomaterials. The proposed equations are used to simulate the stress–strain behavior for 27 frictional materials with 98 tests. These materials include soft and stiff clays in both reconstituted and structured states, silicon sands and calcareous sands, silts, compacted fill materials, volcanic soils, decomposed granite soils, cemented soils (both artificially and naturally cemented), partially saturated soils, ballast, rocks, reinforced soils, tire chips, sugar, wheat, and rapeseed. It has been demonstrated that the proposed explicit constitutive equations have the capacity to capture accurately the shearing behavior of frictional materials both qualitatively and quantitatively. A study on model parameters has been performed.     

Numerical study of sand scour with a modified Eulerian model based on incipient motion theory

Application of the standard Eulerian model to simulations of sand scour results in unrealistic phenomena. Therefore, the present work develops a modified Eulerian model based on sand incipient motion theory. The modified model is applied for simulating a two-dimensional single vertical jet and a moving planar jet. The simulation results generally demonstrate fairly good agreement with published results of scour profiles and the velocity contours of the water and sand phases. In addition, equations to describe self-similar scour profiles for the moving planar jet cases are given. The results demonstrate that the modified model efficiently and accurately simulates the two-dimensional sand scour produced by jets, particularly for the moving jet cases.     

Controls on reservoir heterogeneity of tight sand oil reservoirs in Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation in Longdong Area,southwest Ordos Basin,China: Implications for reservoir quality prediction and oil accumulation

Compared to conventional reservoirs, pore structure and diagenetic alterations of unconventional tight sand oil reservoirs are highly heterogeneous. The Upper Triassic Yanchang Formation is a major tight-oil-bearing formation in the Ordos Basin, providing an opportunity to study the factors that control reservoir heterogeneity and the heterogeneity of oil accumulation in tight oil sandstones.The Chang 8 tight oil sandstone in the study area is comprised of fine-to medium-grained, moderately to well-sorted lithic arkose and feldspathic litharenite. The reservoir quality is extremely heterogeneous due to large heterogeneities in the depositional facies, pore structures and diagenetic alterations. Small throat size is believed to be responsible for the ultra-low permeability in tight oil reservoirs. Most reservoirs with good reservoir quality, larger pore-throat size, lower pore-throat radius ratio and well pore connectivity were deposited in high-energy environments, such as distributary channels and mouth bars. For a given depositional facies, reservoir quality varies with the bedding structures. Massive- or parallel-bedded sandstones are more favorable for the development of porosity and permeability sweet zones for oil charging and accumulation than cross-bedded sandstones.Authigenic chlorite rim cementation and dissolution of unstable detrital grains are two major diagenetic processes that preserve porosity and permeability sweet zones in oil-bearing intervals. Nevertheless, chlorite rims cannot effectively preserve porosity-permeability when the chlorite content is greater than a threshold value of 7%, and compaction played a minor role in porosity destruction in the situation. Intensive cementation of pore-lining chlorites significantly reduces reservoir permeability by obstructing the pore-throats and reducing their connectivity. Stratigraphically, sandstones within 1 m from adjacent sandstone-mudstone contacts are usually tightly cemented (carbonate cement > 10%) with low porosity and permeability (lower than 10% and 0.1 mD, respectively). The carbonate cement most likely originates from external sources, probably derived from the surrounding mudstone. Most late carbonate cements filled the previously dissolved intra-feldspar pores and the residual intergranular pores, and finally formed the tight reservoirs.The petrophysical properties significantly control the fluid flow capability and the oil charging/accumulation capability of the Chang 8 tight sandstones. Oil layers usually have oil saturation greater than 40%. A pore-throat radius of less than 0.4 μm is not effective for producible oil to flow, and the cut off of porosity and permeability for the net pay are 7% and 0.1 mD, respectively.     

南黄海辐射沙脊群西洋水道污水输移扩散研究

采用沿深平均二维数值模型对南黄海辐射沙脊群西洋海域的潮流场和物质扩散场进行了模拟,计算和分析了大潮情况下海域5 m、7 m和10 m 3种水深(理论基准面下)排放位置处达标污水输移扩散的范围及分布规律。结果表明,污水排入海后,会很快被稀释,各排放位置200和500稀释度等值线包络面积均较小,且包络面积随水深增加有明显变小的规律。拟合了不同污水排放量对应的200和500稀释倍数包络面积,发现两者呈良好的幂级数关系。     

淤泥质、粉沙质及沙质海岸航道回淤统一计算方法

根据20世纪80年代初提出的淤泥质海岸航道回淤计算方法的基础上,开展了拓展研究,使之统一适用于淤泥质海岸、粉沙质海岸及沙质海岸。主要研究内容有,在波浪和潮流综合作用下挟沙力含沙量研究中引入了特定的泥沙因子F1/F,从而挟沙力含沙量公式不仅适用于淤泥质泥沙,也适用于非淤泥质泥沙;在动力因素方面,除了一般寻常潮和波浪动力外,进一步考虑了风暴潮和破波的巨大掀沙能力造成航道骤淤的可能性。并结合连云港30万吨级主航道扩建及徐圩港区10万吨级航道的回淤问题(包括骤淤可能性问题),京唐港外航道和黄骅港外航道的骤淤问题,进行预测计算及校验计算,结果都是良好的。此外,对杭州湾强潮和涌潮情况下的挟沙力含沙量也进行了校验计算,结果也非常满意。     

南黄海太阳沙西侧潮流脊槽的沉积物分布特征和沉积环境演变

对南黄海太阳沙西侧潮流脊槽区进行了底质调查,采用密集站位的振动活塞柱状沉积物采样器取样。根据粒度分析结果,比较精细地研究了厚度约2～3 m浅表层沉积物的空间分布特征。结果表明:表层沉积物中,细砂主要分布在潮流脊和岸滩上,其它较细的沉积类型主要分布于潮流槽内,呈显“脊砂槽泥”的沉积地貌基本特征。同时,沙脊上的表层细砂的分布范围明显与沙脊至海岸的距离有关,除了潮流的影响外,主要与外侧沙脊的消浪作用有关。另外,根据表层沉积物分布的沉积地貌特征,探讨了潮流脊槽的沉积环境演变。     

Effects of Mudstone Particle Content on Shear Strength of a Crushed Sandstone–Mudstone Particle Mixture

The present study focuses on the shear strength, deformation, and particle crushing of sand which is mixed by crushed sandstone and mudstone particles. Two triaxial tests—one for unsaturated specimens and the other for saturated specimens—were performed, along with sieve analysis tests. Results obtained from the triaxial tests indicate that, with the increment of the mudstone particle content by weight, the angle of internal friction decreases, the cohesion increases and then decreases, and both the initial angle of shearing resistance at the atmospheric pressure and decremental angle increase and then decrease. Compared to the unsaturated specimens, the deviator stress or normalized deviator stress of the saturated specimens at the same axial stress may decrease due to the wetting action. Thus, the shear strength of the tested materials may be reduced by the wetting action. Results of sieve analysis tests indicate that the mixing of some mudstone particles into the sandstone particle mixture may reduce the amount of particle crushing, but the wetting action may increase the amount. The amount of the crushed particle may arrive at a minimum of 40% of mudstone particle content by weight.     

Laboratory Study for Influence of Clay Content (CC) on Wave-Induced Liquefaction in Marine Sediments

In this artice, the influence of clay content on the wave-induced liquefaction in marine sediments was reported. The one-dimensional (1-D) equipment was setup with a vertical cylinder and 1.8–m–thick clayey sandy deposit and 0.2–m–thick water above the deposit. Unlike the previous experimental study for a single soil layer, this study used sand-kaolin mixtures, sand-illite mixtures, and sand-bentonite mixtures as the experimental samples. A series of experiments with 3,000 wave cycles in each test were conducted under numerous wave and soil conditions, which allowed us to examine the influence of clay content (CC) on wave-induced liquefaction in marine sediments. The experimental results showed that the clayey sandy deposit will become prone to liquefaction with the increase of CC when CC is less than a critical value, which depends on the type of clay. However, when CC is greater than the critical value, liquefaction depth will decrease as CC increases. Furthermore, when the CC value reaches a certain level, liquefaction will not occur. For example, no liquefaction occurs when CC ≥ 33% for both kaolin-sand and illite-sand mixtures and CC ≥ 16.36% for bentonite-sand mixtures.