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Bio-mediated calcium carbonate precipitation and its effect on the shear behaviour of calcareous sand

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Abstract

Calcareous sands have abundant intraparticle pores and are prone to particle breakage. This often leads to poor engineering properties, which poses a challenge to coastal infrastructure construction. A study using bio-cementation to improve the engineering properties of calcareous sand is presented in this paper. The macro- and microscopic properties of bio-cemented calcareous sand were characterized by drained triaxial tests and scanning electron microscopy observations. Experimental results show that the precipitated calcium carbonate can effectively fill the intra- and interparticle pores and bond adjacent particles, thus enhancing the shear strength of calcareous sand. The special structures (e.g. abundant intraparticle pores and rough surface) and mineral components (i.e. calcium carbonate) of calcareous sand are beneficial for improving bacterial retention in soil, which leads to a relatively uniform and dense calcium carbonate distribution on the sand particle surface, exhibiting a layer-by-layer growth pattern. This growth pattern and the abundant interparticle pores would result in less effective calcium carbonate. The strength enhancement of bio-cemented calcareous sand is significantly lower than that of bio-cemented silica sand at the same calcium carbonate content, which may be caused by the differences in the following: (a) soil skeleton strength; (b) the amount of effective calcium carbonate; and (c) interparticle pore-filling of calcium carbonate.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2016YFC0800200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 51708243, 51478201 and 51878313) and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Nos. 2016M600595, 2018M632862 and 2018T110769). The authors would like to express their gratitude for these financial assistances. Special thanks go to the Analytical and Testing Centre at Huazhong University of Science & Technology (HUST) for providing Scanning Electron Microscope.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Ming-Juan Cui, Jun-Jie Zheng & Chao-Chuan Wu

  2. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 10 Blk N1, 50 Nanyang Ave, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Jian Chu & Han-Jiang Lai

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  1. Ming-Juan Cui
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Cui, MJ., Zheng, JJ., Chu, J. et al. Bio-mediated calcium carbonate precipitation and its effect on the shear behaviour of calcareous sand. Acta Geotech. 16, 1377–1389 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-020-01099-0

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