The deformation and permeability of Yanji mudstone under cyclic loading and unloading

During the constructions of motorways and high-speed railway lines in the Yanji Basin, large amounts of excess mudstones due to the enormous tunnel excavations and slope cuts would be deposited as landfills. Assessing the deformation and permeability of Yanji mudstone became important for the design, construction and operation of the landfills. This paper presents an experimental study on the deformation and permeability of Yanji mudstone by carrying out a series of oedometer tests with loading/unloading cycles. The results show that the sample with a lower initial water content exhibited greater swelling deformation after inundation, a lower yield stress, greater deformation and a higher hydraulic conductivity during the loading/unloading cycles. As the number of loading/unloading cycles increased, the yield stress and accumulated plastic deformation increased, while the compression index, rebound index and hydraulic conductivity decreased. The samples became stiffer and their hydromechanical behaviour tended to be stable after three cycles. The compression curves could be divided into pre-yield and post-yield zones. The post-yield zones of compression curves and the rebound curves could be normalized into a unique line, and the pre-yield zones of the compression curves could be described as lines. Basic equations were developed to predict mudstone deformation under cyclic loading and unloading. Additionally, an empirical relationship between the hydraulic conductivity and void ratio was also proposed. The ability of the proposed methods was verified by the overall good agreement between the experimental results and predicted values.