• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.565-574
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• 2013

Extensive study was carried out on Clay expansive soil. This soil was silty clay and can be classified as CH. The degree of expansion was found to range from low to medium depending on the free swell and swell pressure tests. The research investigated the effect of using cement dust on swelling potential, Atterberg Limit, linear shrinkage, and mineralogical composition of expansive soil. The results showed that the swelling potential, plasticity index, linear shrinkage, and clay minerals decrease with increasing cement dust percentage. The cement dust accumulates in huge amounts as a side product in cement factories, and the disposal of this fine dust is very difficult and poses an environmental threat.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

Shallow failures occur frequently in both engineered and natural slopes in expansive soils. Rainfall infiltration is the most predominant triggering factor that contributes to slope failures in both expansive soils and clayey soils. However, slope failures in expansive soils have some distinct characteristics in comparison to slopes in conventional clayey soils. They typically undergo shallow failures with gentle sliding retrogression characteristics. The shallow sliding mass near the slope surface is typically in a state of unsaturated condition and will exhibit significant volume changes with increasing water content during rainfall periods. Many other properties or characteristics change such as the shear strength, matric suction including stress distribution change with respect to depth and time. All these parameters have a significant contribution to the expansive soil slopes instability and are difficult to take into consideration in slope stability analysis using traditional slope stability analysis methods based on principles of saturated soil mechanics. In this paper, commercial software VADOSE/W that can account for climatic factors is used to predict variation of matric suction with respect to time for an expansive soil cut slope in China, which is reported in the literature. The variation of factor of safety with respect to time for this slope is computed using SLOPE/W by taking account of shear strength reduction associated with loss of matric suction extending state-of-the art understanding of the mechanics of unsaturated soils.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.91 no.3
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• pp.315-324
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• 2024

An expansive soil in 4970 special railway line in Dangyang City, China, has encountered a series of landslides due to the expansion characteristics of expansive soil over the past 50 years. Thereafter, a sheet-pile retaining structure was adopted to fortify the expansive soil slope after a comprehensive discussion. In order to evaluate the efficacy of engineering measure of sheet-pile retaining structure, the field test was carried out to investigate the lateral pressure and pile bending moment subjected to construction and service conditions, and the local daily rainfall was also recorded. It took more than 500 days to carry out the field investigation, and the general change laws of lateral pressure and pile bending moment versus local daily rainfall were obtained. The results show that the effect of rainfall on the moisture content of backfill behind the wall decreases with depth. The performance of sheet-pile retaining structure is sensitive to the intensity of rainfall. The arching effect is reduced significantly by employing a series of sheet behind piles. The lateral pressure behind the sheet exhibits a single-peak distribution. The turning point of the horizontal swelling pressure distribution is correlated with the self-weight pressure distribution of soil and the variation of soil moisture content. The measured pile bending moment is approximately 44% of the ultimate pile capacity, which indicates that the sheet-pile retaining structure is in a stable service condition with enough safety reserve.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.99-111
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• 1999

The frictional capacity of auger-cast piles is often very small because of the disturbance of the soil surrounding the pile during the excavation process. Usage of expansive agents and a pressurized injection technique for auger-cast piles should improve the frictional resistance between pile and soil. This paper presents the test results of auger-cast model piles installed with expansive mortar in laboratory compacted weathered soil. The model piles were installed in a calibration chamber with a variation in the amount of expansive agent, the injection process and the chamber pressure. It was observed that the pile shaft resistance increases with the increased amount of expansive agent, and also increases when mortar is pressure injected. The shaft resistance increased up to 24% for the pile installed only with expansive mortar and increased up to 56% for the pile installed with the pressurized injection of expansive mortar, compared with that of piles with plain mortar.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.125-136
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• 2024

In the present research the durability and geotechnical properties of an expensive clayey soil stabilized by two different compositions of additives were investigated and compared. The first composition consisted of environmentally and ecofriendly materials: BOF steel slag ranging from 0-20% as well as rice husk ash (RHA) ranged 0-16%wt of dry soil. The other composition consisted of relatively new generation of materials including nanomaterials: nano-CaCO3 as well as nano-SiO2. Atterberg limits test, free swell percent test, swelling pressure test and unconfined compressive test were used to assess the stabilizers influences upon expansive soil geotechnical characteristics. Also, the recurrent wet-dry cycles test was exerted on experimental and non-experimental samples for estimating stabilizers effects on durability. According to the results, each of the BOF slag and RHA enhances the expansive soil properties individually, while combination of slag-RHA led to better improvement of the soil properties. Also, the composition of nano-CaCO3 and SiO2 dramatically improved the clay soil operation. The optimum values of slag+RHA were suggested as 20% slag+12% RHA to enhance percent of swelling, pressure of swelling in addition to UCS as much as 95%, 96%, and 370%, respectively. The optimum value for the second stabilizer in this study was found to be 2%nano-SiO2+2% nano-CaCO3 which led to 318% increase in UCS and 86% decrease in swelling pressure.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.179-188
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• 2015

Although permeating injection is ideal for grouting reservoir embankments, it is usually combined with fracturing injection for grouting, which can disturb the original soil. Compaction with low expansive pressure followed by grout injection can overcome this problem. An expansive compaction (EC) packer was developed in this work to easily apply sequential injection and compaction at a work site. Furthermore, to achieve compaction around the grouting hole, a mixture of expansive admixtures and grout was injected with the EC packer to trigger an increase in volume of the grout material. This work verifies the compaction effect of the EC packer and the expansive admixture. It reports the concepts of the EC packer, the range of expansive compaction, the effectiveness of injection, and the results of indoor tests performed to verify the effectiveness of the expansive admixtures. The indoor testing comprised a preparatory test and the main test. The preparatory test assessed the admixtures for their compaction effects, while the main test measured and analyzed the admixtures' expansive force, pressure, and compaction effect with a mold to verify the effectiveness of the compaction effect.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2020

Soil is the fundamental element in the construction process. Soil problems affect the safety of the structures, even so the high quality of the structures and so, bad soil found the structures will affect the lifetime or even destroy the structures built on it. Therefore, the study of soil is an important step in the construction process and the investigation of the most effective characteristics of a special kind of soil (shale soil), i.e. Atterberg limits, swelling pressure, swelling potential and unconfined compression strength, are the most effective soil properties. A big projects will be constructed in new urban extension areas with expansive shale soils, like at Al-Kawamil and new Akhmim shale soils which associated with soil problems, treatment system should be used to ensure the stability of the soil under the structures foundations one of the most effective methods is by adding lime solution to the soil by specific quantities, which affect on the properties of the shale soil by decreasing the swelling and increasing the compressive strength of the treatment soils. Experimenting with the soil added to the lime, it was found that the addition of lime solution 6% improve c j the properties of the soil. The results of the tests showed the high effectiveness of using lime in the treatment of Al-Kawamil soil

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.403-418
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• 2014

There are around 6700 millions tons of perlite reserves in the world. Although perlite possesses pozzolanic properties, it has not been so far used in soil stabilization. In this study, stabilization with perlite and lime of an expansive clayey soil containing smectite group clay minerals such as montmorillonite and nontronite was investigated experimentally. For this purpose, test mixtures were prepared with 8% of lime (optimum lime ratio of the soil) and without lime by adding 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of perlite. Geotechnical properties such as compaction, Atterberg limits, swelling, unconfined compressive strength of the mixtures and changes of these properties depending on perlite ratio and time were determined. The test results show that stabilization of the soil with combination of perlite and lime improves the geotechnical properties better than those of perlite or lime alone. This experimental study unveils that the mixture containing 30% perlite and 8% lime is the optimum solution in stabilization of the soil with respect to strength.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.227-236
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• 2020

Expansive soils are renowned for their swelling-shrinkage property and these volumetric changes resultantly cause huge damage to civil infrastructures. Likewise, subgrades consisting of expansive soils instigate serviceability failures in pavements across various regions of Pakistan and worldwide. This study presents the use of polypropylene fibers to improve the engineering properties of a local swelling soil. The moisture-density relationship, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and elastic modulus (E₅₀), California bearing ratio (CBR) and one-dimensional consolidation behavior of the soil treated with 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8% fibers have been investigated in this study. It is found that the maximum dry density of reinforced soil slightly decreased by 2.8% due to replacement of heavier soil particles by light-weight fibers and the optimum moisture content remained almost unaffected due to non-absorbent nature of the fibers. A significant improvement has been observed in UCS (an increase of 279%), E₅₀ (an increase of 113.6%) and CBR value (an increase of 94.4% under unsoaked and an increase of 55.6% under soaked conditions) of the soil reinforced with 0.4% fibers, thereby providing a better quality subgrade for the construction of pavements on such soils. Free swell and swell pressure of the soil also significantly reduced (94.4% and 87.9%, respectively) with the addition of 0.8% fibers and eventually converting the medium swelling soil to a low swelling class. Similarly, the compression and rebound indices also reduced by 69.9% and 88%, respectively with fiber inclusion of 0.8%. From the experimental evaluations, it emerges that polypropylene fiber has great potential as a low cost and sustainable stabilizing material for widespread swelling soils.

• Journal of the Korea Construction Safety Engineering Association
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• s.48
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• pp.75-89
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• 2009