Mechanism of clay swelling in Villarlod molasse: a Swiss sandstone

A molecular mechanism of hysteresis in clay swelling.

The Swelling Behavior of Clay - Sulfate Rocks

Clay-sulfate rocks are often encountered in engineering projects such as underground construction and waste repositories. The unique combination of clay swelling and chemical transformation of anhydrite into gypsum results in a swelling behavior that cannot be explained using conventional rock mechanics. The goals of this study are: 1) to investigate the strength characteristics of reconstitute...

The Rheology of Swelling Clay Dispersions

Nearly all muds, in drilling applications, contain smectite clay minerals, such as montmorillonite or hectorite, which have the remarkable property of swelling in the presence of water. Such systems are known to exhibit long-term gelation and thixotropic behavior, of great importance in applications, depending on clay volume fraction, particle properties (origin of the clay, surface charge, etc...

Swelling transition of a clay induced by heating

Clays are of paramount importance for soil stability, but also in applications ranging from oil recovery to composites and hydrogels. Generically, clays are divided into two subclasses: macroscopically swelling, 'active' clays that have the capacity for taking up large amounts of water to form stable gels, and 'passive' or non-swelling clays; the former stabilize soils whereas the latter are kn...

Slab rollback orogeny in the Alps and evolution of the Swiss Molasse basin

The stratigraphies of foreland basins have been related to orogeny, where continent-continent collision causes the construction of topography and the downwarping of the foreland plate. These mechanisms have been inferred for the Molasse basin, stretching along the northern margin of the European Alps. Continuous flexural bending of the subducting European lithosphere as a consequence of topogra...