Journal of the Korean Geo-Environmental Society ISSN:1598-0820(Print) 2714-1233(Online) 한국지반환경공학회 논문집

Estimating the thermal conductivity of clayey soils is important for enhancing the performance of geoengineering structures in cold regions and clay barriers for nuclear waste repositories, but specimen disturbance, saturation, and heat boundary conditions of the test apparatus hinder reliable measurements of the thermal conductivity of saturated clayey soils. This paper presents the results of an experimental study carried out using modified consolidation tests with the needle probe method to measure thermal conductivity. Experimental consolidation tests with saturated kaolinite were performed to investigate the effect of effective stress and dry density on thermal conductivity for saturated kaolinite. In addition, thermal conductivity of soil particles were thoroughly investigated and experimental results were used to evaluate the accuracy of the models to predict thermal conductivity.