The behaviour of Boom clay under triaxial compression at different temperatures

In order to study the thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of Boom clay extracted from the Underground Research Laboratory (URL) at Mol (Belgium), an experimental investigation was carried out using triaxial compression tests at various temperatures. Prior to testing, the soil specimen was re-saturated under confining pressure equal to the in-situ stress (2.5 MPa). This procedure allows the soil swelling to be prevented during the resaturation procedure. After the resaturation phase, the soil temperature was imposed at 25 or 80°C. The isotropic effective stress was then imposed in the range of 2.5 – 4 MPa. Finally, drained-conditions triaxial compression was performed until the failure (axial strain of about 15%). The results allow analyse of the effect of temperature on various properties: yield stress, elastic modulus, soil strains corresponding to the yields, etc.