Evaluation and improvement on the freeze-thaw durability performance of the polyurethane stabilized Pisha sandstone for water and soil conservation

Stabilization of the loose and fragile Pisha with the hydrophilic polyurethane material has been proved to be a time and cost-efficient protocol for the conservation of soil and water. However, the undesirable durability performance of the original W-OH binder material deteriorate its long-term conservation ability, especially under the freeze-thaw cycles. This study aims to improve the freeze-thaw durability performance of the W-OH composites through mixture design optimization and material modification. This study first investigates the correlation between the freeze-thaw resistance of the W-OH/Pisha sandstone composites and the concentration of the applied W-OH solution. The test results indicated both the compressive strength and elastic modulus of the W-OH based composites would decrease with freeze-thaw cycles and the samples prepared with higher concentration W-OH solution own better freeze-thaw resistance. Meanwhile, the elastic modulus of the W-OH composites decreased almost linearly with the freeze-thaw cycles, which is in accordance with the linear increase of the porosity of samples determined with the ultra-depth-of-field microscope. Based on these mechanism analyses, the modification of the W-OH material was further conducted with the Ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) and air entrainer. The compressive strength test results indicate both the added EVA can enhance the freeze-thaw durability of the W-OH composites, which can be caused by the improved cohesion strength of the W-OH binder due to enhanced density. Similarly, the freeze-thaw durability of the W-OH composites was also enhanced with added air entrainer, which provided extra space for the freezing expansion. The research results of this study can enhance the freeze-thaw durability of the stabilized Pisha sandstone and its long-term conservation ability on soil and water. •The freeze-thaw resistance of the polyurethane stabilized sandstone was obtained for guiding the field application.•A non-destructive protocol was built with the ultra-depth-of-field microscope to examine the freeze-thaw damage.•Both the Ethylene-vinyl acetate and air entrainer can enhance the freeze-thaw resistance of the stabilized sandstone.•It is found the freeze-thaw cycles mainly lead to cohesion damage instead of adhesion failure in the stabilized sandstone.