Abstract Summary
The effect of temperature on the mechanical behaviour of clay-based geomaterials is relevant in several geotechnical applications. This research uses combined SAXS/WAXS measurements to monitor nano-scale changes induced in the clay basal distances of several fine-grained natural soils in their saturated state by temperature variations. The results show that intra-particle changes upon heating in saturated samples do not play a major role in the macroscopic thermo-mechanical response of clay within the temperature range considered for most thermal applications, and this is independent by clay mineralogy.
