Resilient Modulus of Freeze-Thaw Affected Granular Soils for Pavement Design and Evaluation. Part 3. Laboratory Tests on Soils from Albany County Airport,

Abstract : This is the third in a series of four reports on the laboratory and field testing of a number of road and airfield subgrades, covering the laboratory repeated-load triaxial testing of five soils in the frozen and thawed states and analysis of the resulting resilient modulus measurements. The laboratory testing procedures allow simulation of the gradual increase in stiffness found in frost-susceptible soils after thawing. The resilient modulus is expressed in a nonlinear model in terms of the applied stresses, the soil moisture tension level (for unfrozen soil), the unfrozen water content (for frozen soil) and the dry density. The resilient modulus is about 10 GPa for the frozen material at temperatures in the range of -5 to -8 C. The decrease in modulus with increasing temperatures was well-modeled in terms of the unfrozen water content. Upon thaw, the modulus dropped to about 100 MPa and generally increased with increasing confining stress and decreased with increasing principal stress ratio. The modulus also increased with the soil moisture tension level. The resilient Poisson's ratio did not appear to be a systematic function of any of the test variables. Keywords: Soil dynamics; Soil stabilization.