Expansive soils are susceptible to cracking due to significant moisture fluctuations, which can potentially lead to structural instability. Although geogrid reinforcement is widely used to control soil swelling and shrinkage, its effects on cracking behavior are not fully understood. This study investigates the influence of geogrid reinforcement on the cracking behavior of expansive soils by comparing soil samples reinforced with two layers of geogrid to unreinforced samples under evaporation conditions. Crack development was monitored using high- resolution imaging and fluorescence tracing to measure crack depth and calculate surface crack ratio. Additionally, moisture content distribution and evaporation rates were assessed. The results show that geogrid reinforcement reduced the total crack ratio by 1.34% and decreased average crack depth by 43.5%, leading to a more uniform crack distribution with smaller openings. Both internal and external cracks facilitated moisture exchange between the soil and atmosphere. The frictional and interlocking effects at the soil-geogrid interface effectively inhibited cracking and reduced moisture migration. The uniaxial geogrid also induced anisotropy crack restraint, with environmental exposure and geogrid orientation playing critical roles in crack control. Overall, these findings demonstrate the effectiveness of geogrids in enhancing the stability of expansive soils and limiting atmospheric influence through crack suppression.

The mineralogy and texture of granite have been found to have a pronounced effect on its mechanical behavior. However, the precise manner in which the texture of granite affects the shear behavior of fractures remains enigmatic. In this study, fine-grained granite (FG) and coarse-grained granite (CG) were used to create tensile fractures with surface roughness (i.e. joint roughness coefficient (JRC)) within the range of 5.48-8.34 and 12.68-16.5, respectively. The pre-fractured specimens were then subjected to direct shear tests under normal stresses of 1-30 MPa. The results reveal that shear strengths are smaller and stick-slip behaviors are more intense for FG fractures than for CG fractures, which is attributed to the different conditions of the shear surface constrained by the grain size. The smaller grain size in FG contributes to the smoother fracture surface and lower shear strength. The negative friction rate parameter a - b for both CG and FG fractures and the larger shear stiffness for FG than for CG fractures can account for the more intense stick-slip behaviors in FG fractures. The relative crack density for the post-shear CG fractures is greater than that of the FG fractures under the same normal stress, both of which decrease with the distance away from the shear surface following the power law. Moreover, the damage of CG fracture extends to a larger extent beneath the surface compared with the FG fracture. Our findings demonstrate that the grain size of the host rock exerts a significant influence on the fracture roughness, and thus should be incorporated into the assessment of fault slip behavior to better understand the role of mineralogy and texture in seismic activities. (c) 2025 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ 4.0/).

The benefits of using cryogenic liquid nitrogen shock to enhance coal permeability have been confirmed from experimental perspectives. In this paper, we develop a fully coupled thermo-elastic model in combination with the strain-based isotropic damage theory to uncover the cooling-dominated cracking behaviors through three typical cases, i.e. coal reservoirs containing a wellbore, a primary fracture, and a natural fracture network, respectively. The progressive cracking processes, from thermal fracture initiation, propagation or cessation, deflection, bifurcation to multi-fracture interactions, can be well captured by the numerical model. It is observed that two hierarchical levels of thermal fractures are formed, in which the number of shorter thermal fractures consistently exceeds that of the longer ones. The effects of coal properties related to thermal stress levels and thermal diffusivity on the fracture morphology are quantified by the fracture fractal dimension and the statistical fracture number. The induced fracture morphology is most sensitive to changes in the elastic modulus and thermal expansion coefficient, both of which dominate the complexity of the fracture networks. Coal reservoir candidates with preferred thermal-mechanical properties are also recommended for improving the stimulation effect. Further findings are that there exists a critical injection temperature and a critical in-situ stress difference, above which no thermal fractures would be formed. Preexisting natural fractures with higher density and preferred orientations are also essential for the formation of complex fracture networks. The obtained results can provide some theoretical support for cryogenic fracturing design in coal reservoirs. (c) 2024 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).