Effect of Wood Fiber on the Strength of Calcareous Sand Rapidly Seeped by Colloidal Silica

Silica nano-particles are suspended in the colloidal silica and can be induced to gradually gel after the PH value changes. Thus colloidal silica can be utilized to rapidly seep through loose calcareous sand, and the silicon gel is gradually formed to bond sand particles. However, based on observation by scanning electron microscope(SEM), there are a lot of microcracks in the silica gel, which reduces the strength of the sand-gel composite. Therefore, in order to suppress crack growth, wood fibers are dispersed in the colloidal silica which still can seep through calcareous sand. 18 silicon-gel stabilized sand samples were prepared for tri-axial tests, where the concentration of colloidal silica is 20%, and wood fiber concentrations are 0%, 0.01%, 0.02%, 0.03%, 0.04%, 0.05%, respectively. The results show that:(1) there exists an optimum ratio of wood fiber to colloidal silica, that is, as the concentration of wood fiber increases, the strength represented by the peak value of deviator stress rises first and then falls; (2) there are opposite trends between the two strength parameters, internal friction angle and cohesion, that is, when the wood fiber concentration is 0.04%, the cohesion reaches the maximum value and the internal friction angle reaches the minimum value; (3) The photos by SEM show that, there are wood fibers on the inner wall of the crack in the silica gel, which may reduce the extent of crack propagation and contribute to the strength of stabilized sand samples.