Strength of Vegetated Coal-Bearing Soil under Dry-Wet Cycles: An Experimental Study

Strength of vegetated coal-bearing soil is of great significance to evaluate the shallow stability of vegetated slopes in coal-bearing soil regions. This paper takes D-W cycles, dry density, water content, and vegetation root (VR) content as four factors and carries out the triaxial test for the orthogonal design of vegetated coal-bearing soil in southern China. The strength curves of vegetated coal-bearing soil under four factors were obtained. The Taguchi method was used to quantitatively analyse the effects of four factors. The microstructure of coal-bearing soil under D-W cycles and the theory of soil reinforcement by VR were discussed. The results indicated that D-W cycles had a significant effect on the cohesion and internal friction angle ( P < 0.05 ). The internal friction angle was little affected by the water content and VR content, which had considerable influence on the cohesion. The cohesion could be improved with less than 2% VR content. The cohesion was the largest for no D-W cycles, 10% water content, and 2% VR content. The links between mineral particles go from a stable layered structure to unsteadiness chain structure with the increase in the number of D-W cycles.