Y. LIANG et al.: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
829–835
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE
CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
EKSPERIMENTALNA ŠTUDIJA KARAKTERISTIK ZAŠ^ITE PROTI
PRONICANJU SIDRATONSKIH DELCEV
Yue Liang
1,2,3*
,QiW ei
1,2
, Chen Ma
1,2
, Pengfei Chen
1,2
, Dehong Yang
3
, Wei Xiong
3
1
National Engineering Research Center for Inland Waterway Regulation, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, China
2
School of River and Ocean Engineering, Chongqing Jiaotong University, Chongqing, China
3
CCCC THCQ Ecological Restoration Research Institute Co., Ltd., C, Chongqing, China
Prejem rokopisa – received: 2020-03-04; sprejem za objavo – accepted for publication: 2020-07-15
doi:10.17222/mit.2020.040
Leakage is a common safety problem of embankment dams and levees. Leakage not only causes a loss of water, but also leads to
potential failure of various mechanisms such as internal erosion. This study introduces a newly developed anti-seepage material,
i.e., the Sidraton particles, that can be used for leakage repairs. The Sidraton particles are composed of quartz cores, bentonite
and a polymer-binder coating on them. The Sidraton particles hydrate when they meet water, subsequently functioning as an
anti-seepage barrier. For this study, eighteen laboratory experiments were carried out with a pressure-controlled apparatus to in-
vestigate the anti-seepage characteristics of hydrated Sidraton particles. The study focuses on the effects of the stress and the
fraction of added sand. The experiment results reveal that hydrated Sidraton particles exhibit the favorable anti-seepage ability
and high stress sensitivity. The effects of adding sand are also significant for the permeability of the hydrated particles. The ad-
vantages of an anti-seepage structure composed of Sidraton particles are also confirmed by comparing them to the traditional
leakage-proofing materials such as natural clay and an HDPE film. These advantages include an extremely low permeability, the
coordinated-deformation ability and the self-repairing ability. Because of these characteristics, the Sidraton-particle material can
play an important role in anti-seepage projects including the leakage repairs of embankment dams and levees.
Keywords: Sidraton particles, anti-seepage characteristics, stress state, hydraulic conductivity
Pu{~anje vode je glavni problem nasipov, nabre`in in re~nih pregrad. Netesnost ne povzro~a samo izgub vode temve~ lahko vodi
tudi do po{kodb z razli~nimi mehanizmi kot je interna erozija. V tej {tudiji avtorji tega ~lanka uvajajo nov material, ki
prepre~uje prepu{~anje. To so Sidratonski delci, ki se lahko uporabljajo pri popravilu netesnosti. Sidratonski delci so sestavljeni
iz kremenovih jeder, bentonita in na njih polimernega veziva. Sidratonski delci hidratizirajo, ko se sre~ajo z vodo in takoj
delujejo kot bariera, ki prepre~uje pronicanje. Avtorji te {tudije so izvedli osemnajst (18) laboratorijskih preizkusov z aparatom,
ki mu je mogo~e kontrolirano spreminjati tlak. Na ta na~in so lahko ugotavljajli krakteristike pronicanja vode skozi hidratizirane
Sidratonske delce. [tudirali so vpliv napetosti in dele`a delcev v pe{~eni me{anici. S preiskusi so dokazali, da hidratizirani
Sidratonski delci u~inkovito prepre~ujejo pronicanje vode in so u~inkoviti tudi pri visokih napetostih. U~inek dodatka peska je
prav tako pomemben za propustnost hidratiziranih delcev. V primerjavi z drugimi tesnilnimi materiali (glina, HDPE-film) imajo
zaradi svoje strukture Sidratonski delci dolo~ene prednosti. Tako imajo ekstremno majhno permeabilnost, sposobnost
koordinirane deformacije in sposobnost samo obnavljanja. Zaradi teh lastnosti lahko Sidratonski delci v bodo~e odigrajo
pomembno vlogo pri projektih odprave pronicanja in prepu{~anja vode na nasipih in drugih vodnih zajetjih.
Klju~ne besede: Sidratonski delci, lastnosti pronicanja, napetostno stanje, hidravli~na prevodnost
1 INTRODUCTION
Leakage is a major safety issue of embankment dams
and levees.
1,2
In addition to causing an extra loss of the
water storage in reservoirs, leakage may result in dam
failure due to various mechanisms such as internal ero-
sion.
3
Internal erosion is responsible for about half of the
embankment-dam failures according to the statistics.
4
Therefore, investigating and repairing the leakage of em-
bankment dams and levees are crucial not only for the
economy but also for the safety issues. The investigation
of leakage is extensively progressing with the rapid de-
veloping of the geodesic physical detecting approaches
such as the high-density resistivity method,
5
the transient
electromagnetic method, the flow-field method
6
and the
electrical-resistivity tomography.
7–10
The structures and
the materials used to prevent and repair dam leakage are
also developing. Curtain grouting and a concrete wall are
the common methods and structures used for stopping
seepage and leakage of the existing dams and those un-
der construction.
11
The high-density polyethylene
(HDPE) geomembrane and its multilayer structure are
developed and applied in anti-seepage projects involving
reservoirs and landfills.
12
In recent years, researchers
have produced some new synthetic anti-seepage materi-
als as well. For example, Y. Gao, et al.
13
used micro-
bial-induced calcite precipitation to reduce the pore vol-
ume and soil permeability. Four different treatment
schemes were used to treat experimental soil. The results
showed that the pore volume and pore size of the soil
treated with biological treatment were significantly re-
duced and the permeability rate was reduced. Hatami et
al.
14
studied the performance of a sodium bentonite ad-
mixture in preventing the seepage of a canal bed. With
Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 54 (2020) 6, 829–835 829
UDK 67.017:621.791.725:669.715 ISSN 1580-2949
Original scientific article/Izvirni znanstveni ~lanek MTAEC9, 54(6)829(2020)
*Corresponding author's e-mail:
liangyue2560@163.com (Yue Liang)

the experimental study, they proved that this admixture
layer can successively serve as a seepage barrier as its
swelling fills the pores or voids between the sand parti-
cles and effectively controls the seepage through the soil.
In this research, we introduce a new anti-seepage ma-
terial, i.e., the Sidraton particles, and study its perfor-
mance in the leakage control. The Sidraton particles are
a kind of composite material. They are produced by mix-
ing bentonite, quartz particles and a polymer binder. By
dispersing these particles on the inlet of a leakage, we
form an artificial layer. This layer functions as an
anti-seepage blanket as soon as the particles become hy-
drated and coherent due to their contact with water. We
implement a set of experiments in this study to investi-
gate the permeability characteristics of the anti-seepage
blanket.
2 EXPERIMENTAL PART
2.1 Materials
Figure 1a shows Sidraton particles in their natural
state. The particles are mainly composed of the core and
the coating. The coating mainly includes bentonite and a
polymer binder with a thickness of about 0.5 mm under a
dry condition. The core is natural quartz made from
crushed rocks such as granite and limestone, with a parti-
cle size of 5–10 mm. In the production of Sidraton parti-
cles, three steps are required. The first step is selecting
the quartz. Source rocks with a high rigidity, bearing ca-
pacity and durability are the optimal choice for the core.
The next step is mixing the quartz core with the outer
coating. The materials are mixed in a blender for about
30 minutes. The final step is drying the mixture and then
particles are produced. The produced Sidraton particles
are eco-friendly because all the materials utilized are nat-
ural.
The particle-size distribution of the materials is plot-
ted in Figure 2. It shows that the diameter of the parti-
cles mainly ranges from 5.0 mm to 10.0 mm. The parti-
cle size influences the performance of the particles.
When the particle size is relatively small (e.g., smaller
than 5 mm), the permeability resistance is poor because
it is difficult to evenly wrap the coating around all the
particles during the production of the particles. More-
over, small particles are prone to loss and failing to form
the anti-seepage structure. On the contrary, if the particle
size is too large, e.g., larger than 10.0 mm, the perme-
ability resistance will also decrease because there are
large pores among the particles. The size of the Sidraton
particles expand by 20 % after absorbing water. This
means that the particles with a size of more than 10 mm
still have large pores after their expansion. The previous
applications of the particles prove that the particles with
their size ranging from 5.0 mm to 10.0 mm exhibit better
comprehensive performance than those with smaller or
larger sizes.
Before the expansion, the color of the particles is
white when there are in a dry state. And the color be-
comes gray if the particles meet moisture. Besides the
color changing, the particles swell and bond together
when they meet water. This is because the Sidraton parti-
Y. LIANG et al.: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
830 Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 54 (2020) 6, 829–835
Figure 2: Gradation curve of Sidraton particles
Table 1: Basic physical parameters of Sidraton particles
Parameters Loose state Dense state
Density in its natural state  (g/cm
3
)
1.3082 1.4861
Density in the dry state  d
(g/cm
3
) 1.2747 1.4480
Natural bulk density  (kN/m
3
)
12.8204 14.5638
12.4921 14.1904
Bulk density at saturation  sat
(kN/m
3
)
17.5224 18.5700
Void ratio e 1.0555 0.8087
Specific gravity G
s
2.620
Free expansion rate  ef
20 %
*Angle of internal friction  u
(°) 27.57
*Cohesive force c
u
(kPa) 30.95
Note:  u
and c
u
are tested with the hydrated materials
Figure 1: Photograph of Sidraton particles: a) their natural state, b) af-
ter hydration

cles are a water-swellable material. The bentonite and
the polymer-binder coating on the quartz core absorb
moisture and then hydrate when they are wetted. The
materials on the core swell and melt, cohering and filling
the voids among the particles. Then the scatting particles
form an anti-seepage blanket, functioning as a leakage
barrier (Figure 1b). The physical characteristics of the
particles are listed in Table 1.
2.2 Apparatus
A pressure-controlled apparatus is designed to inves-
tigate the seepage behavior of Sidraton particles. The ap-
paratus is composed of a loading chamber, a vertical
loading system, a confining loading system, a water-sup-
ply system and a water-collecting system (Figure 3).
The loading chamber is a hollow cylindrical tank where
the sample is installed. A specimen with a diameter of
100.0 mm and a height of 200.0 mm is installed on the
base pedestal. The base pedestal, the top cap on the spec-
imen and a rubber film are utilized to isolate the speci-
men in the loading chamber. Both the base pedestal and
the top cap are permeable. The base pedestal connects to
the water-supply system. Pressure/volume controlled
equipment can supply water to the bottom of the speci-
men with a precise target pressure or water head. Water
spills freely through the specimen to the top of the speci-
men, and the hydraulic head on the specimen top can be
treated as the constant equal to the altitude of the spilling
water surface. This means that the head difference ap-
plied to the specimen is constant if the output pressure of
the water-supply system is maintained as intended in the
design of the apparatus. Moreover, the head difference is
variable by adjusting the output of the pressure/volume
controlled equipment. The water spilling from the top of
the specimen flows into the water-collecting system
monitoring the varying fluxes through the specimen. The
weight of the water tank in the water-collecting system is
recorded with a gravity sensor. The seepage flux is cal-
culated by differentiating the relation between the accu-
mulative weight of the collected water and the time, us-
ing the data received by the computer from the sensor.
The vertical loading system and the confining load-
ing system supply target stress conditions to the speci-
men to investigate the seepage behavior under different
stress states. The vertical loading system applies vertical
loads to the bottom of the specimen via a hydraulic de-
vice and a vertical reaction frame. The values of the load
and consequential deformation of the specimen are re-
cord and monitored by a loading sensor and a displace-
ment sensor, respectively. The confining loading system
applies the constant normal stress to the side and top of
the specimen. The confining pressure is supplied and
maintained via the other pressure/volume controlled
equipment. Besides applying the confining load, the con-
fining loading system, i.e., the pressure/volume con-
trolled equipment, also evaluates the volumetric strain of
the specimen by monitoring the volume of the water ex-
change with the loading chamber.
2.3 Experiment procedure
The experiments carried out in this study involve four
main steps. The first step is the preparation of the speci-
mens. The preparation is conducted in the loading cham-
ber using a mold placed to the chamber prior to the spec-
imen preparation. The particles are packed layer by layer
with a depth of a layer of around 5.0 cm. The porosity of
a specimen is controlled to about 0.4 in the preparation
step. The second step is the application of the stresses
onto the specimen. At the beginning of this step, the
mold used for preparing the specimen is removed and the
specimen is sealed. The confining loading system then
injects water into the chamber to drive the air out. The
pressure/volume controlled equipment outputs the target
stress on the specimen after the chamber is filled with
water. The third step is the saturation of the specimen.
The water-supply system is used to accomplish the satu-
ration by slowly and continually filling water into the
base pedestal. Accordingly, the voids in the specimen are
filled by water as the water level rises. The water filling
is terminated when the water lever reaches the top of the
specimen. This process takes about 4.0 h to ensure suffi-
cient saturation and hydration of the specimen. The
fourth step is the seepage process. In this step, the wa-
ter-supply system is employed to provide pressurized
water to the bottom of the specimen via the pressure/vol-
ume controlled equipment. During the increase in the
head difference, the accumulative weight of the water
collected in the water-collecting system is recorded and
used to calculate the varying of the permeability of the
specimen.
2.4 Experiment scenarios
This study concentrates on the anti-seepage behavior
of the Sidraton particles under different conditions. In
the experiments, we investigate the effects of the stress
Y. LIANG et al.: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 54 (2020) 6, 829–835 831
Figure 3: Photograph of the apparatus

state on the permeability of the blanket formed by the
hydrated particles. Besides, in order to study the de-
crease of the permeability, we add sand to the Sidraton
particles to evaluate the influence of the fraction of the
sand on the hydraulic conductivity of the particles. The
information about the experiments carried out in this
study is summarized in Table 2.
Table 2: Summary of the general information about the experiments
carried out in the study
No.
Fraction of
sand %
Confining
pressure kPa
Hydraulic gra-
dient
*1
0.0
0.0 /
2 25.0 1.0
3 30.0 1.25
4 40.0 1.75
5 50.0 2.25
6 60.0 2.5
7
16.7
24.0 1.0
8 27.0 1.0
9 30.0 1.0
10 33.0 1.0
11
23.1
24.0 1.0
12 27.0 1.0
13 30.0 1.0
14 33.0 1.0
15
28.6
24.0 0.925
16 27.0 0.95
17 30.0 0.95
18 33.0 0.95
Note: Experiment No. 1 is carried out with the traditional vari-
able-head permeability-test method
3 RESULTS
3.1 Hydraulic conductivity of the specimen
The typical relations between the accumulative flow
collected by the water-collecting system and the seepage
time are plotted in Figure 4. This figure demonstrates
the varying rate of the flow of experiments Nos. 1–4 un-
der different stress conditions and hydraulic gradients.
These four experiments are implemented with the speci-
mens prepared only with the Sidraton particles. The scat-
ter and fitted curves clearly reveal linear relations be-
tween the flow and the seepage time, indicating that the
seepage behaviors of the materials obey Darcy’s law. On
the basis of Darcy’s law, the hydraulic conductivities of
these four specimens can be evaluated, combining them
with the scale of the specimen, the flow rate and the hy-
draulic gradient.
Figure 5 shows the relations between the hydraulic
conductivity and the confining stress. It shows that the
magnitude of the hydraulic conductivity is 10
–8
cm/s if
the specimen is under a stress-free condition. And the
hydraulic conductivity decreases sharply when the con-
fining stress is applied to the specimen. If the confining
stress increases to 30.0 kPa, the magnitude of the hy-
draulic conductivity reaches 10
–9
cm/s. Specifically, the
permeability of the specimen significantly declines from
6.1×10
–8
cm/s to 6.2 × 10
–9
cm/s when the confining
stress increases from 0.0 kPa to 30.0 kPa, indicating a
ten-time difference between these two stress conditions.
But if the stress continuously increases, for example,
from 30.0 kPa to 60.0 kPa, the decrease of the perme-
ability is gentle. The corresponding hydraulic conductiv-
ity declines from 6.2 × 10
–9
cm/s to 2.6 × 10
–9
cm/s. This
means that the decent rate is relatively high when the
confining stress is low. When the stress increases, the
Y. LIANG et al.: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
832 Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 54 (2020) 6, 829–835
Figure 5: Relations between the hydraulic conductivity and confining
stress
Figure 4: Relations between the accumulative flow and the seepage
time for experiments No. 1–4: a) confining stress = 30.0 kPa and hy-
draulic gradient = 1.25, b) confining stress = 40.0 kPa and hydraulic
gradient = 1.75, c) confining stress = 50.0 kPa and hydraulic gradient
= 2.25 and d) confining stress = 60.0 kPa and hydraulic gradient = 2.5

rate of permeability decrease becomes gradual. And the
hydraulic conductivity tends to be constant when the
confining stress is relatively high.
3.2 Influences of the sand fraction
The experiment results indicate that the permeability
of the anti-seepage blanket composed of the hydrated
Sidraton particles is extremely low. In practice, for ex-
ample, for an embankment-dam leakage repair, there is
no need to use a material with an extremely low perme-
ability since the embankment dams and levees allow
slight leakage on the premise of safety. Therefore, in or-
der to save materials and reduce costs, the constructors
will mix a proportion of sand into the Sidraton particles
when they carry out such projects.
In order to reveal the varying of the permeability of
the anti-seepage blanket, we implement experiment Nos.
7–18 to investigate the effects of the fraction of the sand
mixed with the Sidraton particles. Moreover, we carry
out the experiments under different stress conditions and
similar hydraulic gradients to study the stress effects as
well. In these experiments, we use different fractions of
the sand to prepare the specimens. In the mixing proce-
dure, we choose the common yellow sand to mix it with
the Sidraton particles.This is because this sand has a low
price while meeting the requirements of impermeability.
The added sand can fill in the voids among the Sidraton
particles. After wetting and expansion, the polymer
binder and bentonite will wrap the sand as well. This
means that the anti-leakage performance of the material
will not be significantly reduced despite the fraction of
sand added. Generally, if the average size of the sand
particles is about 1/10 of the size of the Sidraton parti-
cles, the material can be saved and the anti-leakage
structure is still effective.
Figure 6 gives the variation in the hydraulic conduc-
tivity with the increase of the sand added to the Sidraton
particles. It shows that if the proportion of sand in the
mixed sample increases, the permeability of the speci-
men rises significantly. Contrary to the hydraulic con-
ductivity of the material with pure Sidraton particles, the
permeability increases exponentially when sand is added
to the specimens. Mixing about 20.0 % of sand leads to
an about 100× increase in the permeability. It means that
the anti-permeability of the mixed materials decreases
notably. But the permeability of the mixed materials is
still relatively low comparing to the natural anti-seepage
materials. We also draw the range of the hydraulic con-
ductivity of natural clay in Figure 6, represented by the
blue area. It can be seen that the dots representing the
hydraulic conductivities of the materials with sand frac-
tions equal to 16.7 % and 23.1 %, located in the blue
area. This implies that the materials with sand fractions
of less than 23.1 % still exhibit the anti-seepage behavior
equivalent to, or even better than, the behavior of natural
clay.
4 DISCUSSION
The experiment results show that the Sidraton parti-
cles have the favorable anti-seepage ability after their
hydration. Since the hydration time of the particles is rel-
atively short, generally less than 1.0 hour, the impervious
structure constructed with the Sidraton particles is highly
effective in leakage-repair projects, including embank-
ment dams and levees. The anti-permeability ability is
due to the bentonite and the polymer-binder coating on
the quartz core. The bentonite gives the expansibility to
the particles when they absorb moisture. When the parti-
cles meet water, the bentonite hydrates and expands, fill-
ing in the pores among the particles. This process turns a
granular material into an anti-seepage one since the
voids in the material are fully filled. Moreover, if the
bentonite softens when it meets water under a relatively
high confining stress, the filling degree for the pores
should be much higher than in the conditions with low
confining stresses. The anti-seepage performance of the
Sidraton particles is significantly improved when the
confining stress is applied. This is the reason why the hy-
draulic conductivity declines with the increase in the
confining stress, as demonstrated in Figure 5. This be-
havior indicates that the strengthening of the stress con-
dition is an effective way to enhance the performance of
the Sidraton particles used in leakage-repair projects.
The special composition of the Sidraton particles
yields several advantages over the traditional anti-seep-
age methods. Firstly, the impermeability is much higher
than that of natural clay, which is widely used as the im-
pervious curtain in dam constructions. Figure 6 shows
that the hydraulic conductivity of the hydrated Sidraton
particles is less than1%ofthepermeability of clay. This
implies that the amount of the material requirement is
much lower if the Sidraton particles replace, or partly re-
place, clay. Additionally, the permeability of the hy-
Y. LIANG et al.: EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE ANTI-SEEPAGE CHARACTERISTICS OF SIDRATON PARTICLES
Materiali in tehnologije / Materials and technology 54 (2020) 6, 829–835 833
Figure 6: Variation in the hydraulic conductivity with the fraction of
sand

drated Sidraton particles is still equivalent to, or better
than, natural clay even when sand is mixed with them.
Therefore, the cost of Sidraton particles can be signifi-
cantly reduced by adding sand to them, on the premise
that they exhibit an anti-seepage performance similar to
that of natural clay. Their second advantage is that
Sidraton particles have the ability to coordinatedly de-
form with the structure. The hydraulic structure of em-
bankment dams and levees may deform because of the
surrounding effects such as earthquakes and floods. If
the anti-seepage body is incapable of deforming syn-
chronously with the structure, the anti-seepage construc-
tion will be damaged and even lose its efficacy. The hy-
drated Sidraton particles can synchronously deform with
the structure. This is because the anti-seepage blanket
composed of the Sidraton particles can remain plastic
when it meets water. The hydrated bentonite and poly-
mer binder on the particles make the blanket deformable
during its full life cycle.
The third advantage is the self-repairing ability. Be-
sides clay, the HDPE film is another common material
used in anti-seepage projects, especially in landfill con-
structions. The HDPE film is extremely impervious; its
permeability can be as low as 10
–14
cm/s. A 2.0 mm film
can fulfil the seepage-proofing requirements for landfill
constructions. But the vital problem of the HDPE film is
potential damage in the construction and operation pro-
cesses. Moreover, the damage to the film has been
proved to be very common in practice. The conse-
quences of the HDPE-film damage are severe since the
film is probably unrepairable once the construction is
completed. Contrastingly, the damage of an anti-seepage
structure composed of the Sidraton particles is much less
serious. This is because the materials on the Sidraton
particles can swell after they meet water. And the coating
on the cores of the particles is fluxible owing to the poly-
mer binder. Therefore, once damages, e.g., cracks and
punctures, occur in an anti-seepage structure, the hy-
drated bentonite and polymer binder will fill in the dam-
ages automatically, stopping their progression and main-
taining the anti-seepage ability.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this study, a set of laboratory experiments is con-
ducted with a pressure-controlled apparatus to investi-
gate the anti-seepage characteristics of the Sidraton par-
ticles. The experiments reveal the seepage behavior of
the hydrated Sidraton particles under different stress con-
ditions. The hydraulic conductivities of the specimens
are calculated on the basis of Darcy’s law. The effects of
the stress condition and the fraction of the sand mixed
with the materials are also studied.
The experiment results show that the hydrated
Sidraton particles exhibit the favorable anti-seepage abil-
ity. The hydraulic conductivity of the hydrated Sidraton
particles is about 6.1×10
–8
cm/s under a stress-free con-
dition. And the permeability declines to 6.2 × 10
–9
cm/s
if the confining stress increases to about 30.0 kPa. Be-
sides the low permeability, the hydrated Sidraton parti-
cles are also proved to be stress sensitive. The hydraulic
conductivity sharply decreases 10 times when the confin-
ing stress increases from 0.0 kPa to 30.0 kPa. The per-
meability continuously declines if the confining stress
keeps rising. But the rate of permeability decrease is
gradual. And the hydraulic conductivity tends to be con-
stant when the confining stress is relatively high. The ef-
fects of adding sand are also significant for the perme-
ability of the hydrated particles. The experiments show
that mixing about 20.0 % of sand with the Sidraton parti-
cles will lead to an about 100× increase in the permeabil-
ity. But the permeability of the mixed materials is still
relatively low compared to the natural anti-seepage ma-
terials.
The advantages of an anti-seepage structure com-
posed of the Sidraton particles are also confirmed via its
comparison with the traditional leakage-proofing materi-
als such as natural clay and the HDPE film. These ad-
vantages include an extremely low permeability, the co-
ordinated-deformation ability and the self-repairing
ability. Owing to these characteristics, the Sidraton-parti-
cle material can play an important role in anti-seepage
projects including leakage repairs of embankment dams
and levees.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Key R&D
Program of China (grant numbers 2018YFB1600400 &
2018YFC1504700), the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (grant number 41530640), the National
Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing, China (grant
number cstc2018jcyjAX0559) and the fund of China Ge-
ology Survey (grant number DD20189270).
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