Expansive clay is a clay that is prone to large volume changes that are directly related to changes in water content.
The mineral make-up of this type of soil is responsible for the moisture retaining capabilities. Soils with smectite clay minerals, including montmorillonite, have the most dramatic swelling properties. Expansive soils typically contain one or more of these clay minerals: montmorillonite, smectite, bentonite and illite.
Mitigation of the effects of expansive clay on structures built in areas with expansive clays is a major challenge in geotechnical engineering.
Famous quotes containing the words expansive and/or clay:
“An expansive life, one not constrained by four walls, requires as well an expansive pocket.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it, but the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the potter.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)