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Water and Salt Migration with Phase Change in Saline Soil during Freezing and Thawing Processes
Author(s) -
Wu Daoyong,
Zhou Xiangyang,
Jiang Xingyuan
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
groundwater
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.84
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1745-6584
pISSN - 0017-467X
DOI - 10.1111/gwat.12605
Subject(s) - soil salinity , salt (chemistry) , dissolution , plateau (mathematics) , soil water , soil science , leaching model , salt solution , phase (matter) , chemistry , geology , environmental science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , organic chemistry
Water and salt transfer coupled with phase change may cause serious damage to engineering structures in saline soil regions. In this study, the migration of water and salt in silty clay collected from the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau is explored experimentally and numerically during freezing and thawing processes. The results revealed that there are significant differences in the variations of liquid water content and solution concentration for different initial salt contents, due to salt crystallization and dissolution. The temperature‐induced water migration is determined by the soil properties, which can be well explained by the thermodynamics of mass transfer. The amount of salt migrated upward during cooling is slightly larger than that transported downward in the warming period, implying that salt may be accumulated in the surface soil after a large number of circulations and finally result in soil salinization.