Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Journal of Young Scientist", Vol. 7
Written by Florin Sebastian MUSTĂŢEA
On the territory of Romania, we find a multitude of soils that have a special character from the point of view of physical and-mechanical behaviors, which can raise real problems without a thorough experience and a particular engineering approach. In Romania there are many regions in which there are found soils of low consistency, more specifically soft clays. The behavior of these clays, under the influence of mechanical stresses, has very distinct characteristics, namely: thixotropy and consolidation. Knowing the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of these soils is very useful in establishing engineering measures that will lead to a source of risk as small as possible. In Romania, during the construction of highways, there have been major phenomena of instability and bearing capacity failure of the foundation ground made of soft clays under the loads induced by the embankments of the infrastructure. The Sebeş - Turda highway, in the sector between km 63 + 700 - km 64 + 000, crosses the Stejeriş Lake through an approximately 500 m long viaduct.Alternatively, to this solution, the builder initiated the construction of a fill in the lake as a platform for the highway sector. The filling was constructed of sand and gravel aggregates, all embedded in a soft clay matrix with insufficient characteristics to bind the blocks together and form a whole. Thus, there have been mudslides and landslides in the lake and in the remaining filling there have been identified active landslides towards the lake.
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