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Mechanical Behaviors Of Hydrogel-Impregnated Sand, Kejun Wen, Yang Li, Wei Huang, Catherine Armwood, Farshad Amini, Lin Li

Civil and Architectural Engineering Faculty Research

Hydrogel has been widely used in medical studies due to their unique integration of solid and liquid properties. There is limited studies of using hydrogel in construction materials. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of hydrogel on mechanical behaviors of sandy materials. The effects of reaction time, sodium alginate content, and curing temperature on mechanical behaviors of hydrogel-impregnated sand were studied through unconfined compression tests, falling head permeability tests, consolidated and undrained triaxial tests, scanning electron microscopy, and durability tests. The unconfined compression strength (UCS) increased with sodium alginate content, but the hydraulic conductivity of hydrogel-impregnated …