Features of Pressure-Free Impregnation of Binders and their Bid in the Practice of Fixing the Moving Desert Sands

Abstract

Desert sand is subject to deflation. During the construction and operation of railways in the sandy desert, deflation leads to filling the railway track with sand, as well as to soil erosion. To prevent this phenomenon, a binder is sprayed onto the surface of the sand. The penetration of the working composition of the binder into the sand is accompanied by an uneven distribution of the substance, which is proposed to characterize the saturation coefficient. The features of the interaction of the binder and sand from which the protective crust is formed are revealed. Impregnation occurs under the predominant influence of gravitational or capillary forces. The latter allows you to have a uniform distribution of the substance. Preliminary wetting can reduce the pore space of sand and change the nature of the transfer of matter to capillary, which as a result allows obtaining resource-saving technology for fixing movable sand.