Investigating The Effect of Sample Disturbance, Compaction
Investigating The Effect of Sample Disturbance, Compaction
DOI 10.1007/s12665-016-6073-8
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Received: 29 December 2015 / Accepted: 8 September 2016 / Published online: 16 September 2016
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
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and/or environmental issues. For instance, using granular In addition to modifying the characteristics of existing
bases for road construction fails its feasibility when the soil, mitigation of environmental problems due to waste
borrow site is far away from construction site. Another disposal was the main objective of these studies.
example is construction of foundations in soils with poor Usage of lime-stabilized loess in construction of irri-
bearing capacities, where costs of a deep foundation gational water reservoirs is an effective and sustainable
solution can be incompatible with the overall expected method offering good strength while contributing to per-
costs for low-budget building projects. In these cases, meability reduction (George 2001; Harichane et al. 2012;
alternative solutions such as addition of cementitious Jefferson et al. 2005; Soliman and Hanna 2010; Sujit
agents can be used to improve local soil properties (Con- Kumar and Monowar 2012).
sololi et al. 2010). Enhancement of geotechnical properties of a collapsible
Soil stabilization technique has been introduced many soil and chemical stabilization process using lime takes
years ago with the main purpose of making soils capable of place through two set of chemical reactions: short-term and
meeting specific requirements of engineering projects long-term reactions. Short-term reactions include cation
(Harichane et al. 2012). exchange, flocculation and agglomeration; these processes
Scientific techniques of soil stabilization have been are primarily responsible for modification of soil’s engi-
introduced in recent years, and the use of cementitious neering properties such as workability and plasticity
materials like Portland cement, hydraulic lime, bitumen, reduction. Long-term reactions, called pozzolanic reac-
asphalt and certain resins as stabilizer is quite common. tions, lead to create new calcium hydrates, which con-
The potential for using industrial by-products for stabi- tribute to flocculation by bonding adjacent soil particles
lization of clayey soils is promising and has been investi- together and strengthen the soil as the curing occurs.
gated. There are so many by-products that can be used for Pozzolanic reactions are time and temperature dependent,
this purpose, such as cement kiln dust, fly ashes and bottom resulting in a gradual gain in strength over time (Aldaood
ashes from coal burning, rich husk ash or ladle furnace slag et al. 2014).
(Hossain and Mol 2011; Manso et al. 2013). Investigating many by-products (alone or in combina-
Engineering properties of collapsible soils are not suf- tion with cement and lime), has shown that cement kiln
ficient for geotechnical applications; therefore, it is a dust (CKD) provides significant and durable benefits when
common practice to incorporate additives, ranging from is used for stabilization of soils. Addition of CKD increases
by-products to commercially manufactured stabilizers, to unconfined compression strength while reducing swell
improve their engineering properties. Effectiveness of an factor in stabilized soil (Kolias et al. 2005; Onsy Mohamed
additive depends on soil type as well as the field condi- and El Gamal 2012; Parsons and Kneebone 2004; Sarios-
tions. Compaction control and performance specifications seiri and Muhunthan 2008).
are needed to ensure the feasibility of construction (Evs- The addition of cement to soil produces primary and
tatiev 1988). It is possible that sampling and preparation of secondary cementitious compounds in the soil–cement
laboratory specimens may induce disturbances and exper- matrix, which improves soil properties. The primary
imental errors that lead to either an underestimate or an cementation compounds are formed by a hydration reaction
overestimate of field collapse settlements (Houston and El- and comprised of hydrated calcium silicates, calcium alu-
Ehwany 1991). Careful techniques will minimize sample minates and hydrated lime. A secondary pozzolanic reac-
disturbance and maintain basic structural integrity as fine tion between the hydrated lime and the silica and alumina
as particle to particle orientation in clay samples. Barden from the clay minerals leads to form additional calcium
and Sides investigated the engineering behavior and silicate hydrates and calcium aluminate hydrates. This
structure of selected compacted clay samples. Samples soil–cement reaction is responsible for the improvement in
compacted both wet and dry of optimum water content the strength and compressibility of treated soil (Pakbaz and
revealed no marked difference in structure but showed Alipour 2012). Successful attempts have been made in the
turbostratic structure at high scanning electron microscopy Soviet Union and Bulgaria to reduce infiltration leakage of
magnification (Bennett and Hulbert 1986). irrigation canals into loess soils by treatment with salt
Stabilization methods improve binding properties of solutions (Soliman and Hanna 2010). Also, obtained results
loess through formation of new structural bonds, as a result from reconstituted collapsible soils at the laboratory have
of which cohesion increases. This is realized by breaking shown that salts can be effectively used to reduce the
the natural skeleton in some methods, while in other, the collapse potential of soil (Abbeche et al. 2010).
skeleton is fixed and even strengthened by injection. In In the absence of mechanical disturbance of the sedi-
road construction, stabilization is commonly implemented ment, stability may be recovered through the addition of
by using cement, lime and some kind of waste materials salt to the pore water. Sides and Barden concluded that as
(Evstatiev 1988). the clay particle size is reduced, chemical additives become
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Fig. 1 Location of Golestan | earth dam where the soil was obtained
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Results and discussion particles are pressed together, reducing pore space between
them. These pores efficiently affect the movement of water
Sample disturbance through the soil. Therefore, as pore space is decreased
within a soil, volume change potential of the soil also
The results obtained from undisturbed samples showed that decreased.
the average of natural water content was equal to 7 % and
the dry unit weight of samples was about 15 kN/m3. Single Stabilization
oedometer tests were conducted on both undisturbed and
remolded samples at natural water content and dry unit When the remolded samples were stabilized with ammonium
weight. The collapse indices of undisturbed and remolded sulfate and potassium chloride, there was a significant
samples were found to be 7.83 and 5.71, respectively. It has decrease in collapse index. The results show the collapse
been observed that although both undisturbed and remol- index of 2.69 and 3.04 for samples with relative compaction
ded samples underwent a dramatic reduction in volume equals to 85 % which stabilized with 0.5 mol/lit concentra-
when they are saturated under load, sample disturbance tion of potassium chloride and ammonium sulfate solution. It
could decrease the collapse index by about 20 %. This is can therefore be concluded that the magnitude of collapse
due to the difference in microscopic structures between index of the stabilized samples is approximately 50 % less
undisturbed and remolded samples. than that of remolded samples with no stabilization. At the
same concentration, increasing the dry unit weight of sam-
Compaction ples to 90 % of maximum dry unit weight was associated
with a reduction in collapse index down to 1.3 for samples
In order to investigate the effect of compaction on collapse stabilized with potassium chloride and 0.89 for samples
index, samples were remolded at their optimum water stabilized with ammonium sulfate. For samples with a dry
content, because their natural water content was only about unit weight equal to 95 % of the maximum dry unit weight,
7 %, and it is difficult to remold uniform samples at such a this index was reduced to 0.39 for samples stabilized with
low water content. Figure 3 shows the results of single potassium chloride and 0.17 for samples stabilized with
oedometer tests on remolded samples without additives, ammonium sulfate. This procedure was also observed for
which are compacted at different dry unit weights (in the samples that stabilized with 1.25 and 2 mol/lit concentration
following figures, Rc is defined as: Relative compaction of solution. Figure 4 shows the results of single oedometer
¼ cd=c ). Results show the collapse index of samples tests on samples stabilized with ammonium sulfate and
dmax
remolded with their natural dry unit weight (81 % of potassium chloride for 1.25 mol/lit concentration.
maximum dry unit weight) is 5.26 while it is 3.91 for Also, Fig. 5 shows that the magnitude of collapse index
samples remolded with 88 % of maximum dry unit weight decreases with an increase in solution concentration. Sta-
and 0.74 for samples remolded with 95 % of maximum dry bilized samples compacted to 85 % of maximum dry unit
unit weight. As a result, the increase in dry unit weight can weight with a low concentration of 0.5 mol/lit had a col-
reduce the collapse index by more than 80 % and change lapse index of 2.69, while it was reduced to 2.32 for the
the degree of collapse from moderate to slight. Soil com- concentration of 2 mol/lit. Although the magnitude of
paction (increasing the dry unit weight) occurs when soil collapse index decreased, it should be noted that in com-
parison with the effect of dry unit weight of samples, the
concentration of solution did not make significant change.
Applied Vertical Stress (kPa) Comparison of the collapse indices of different tested
1 10 100 1000
samples, as shown in Fig. 5, reveals that the magnitude of
0
1
collapse index decreases with an increase in solution con-
2 centration. Stabilized samples compacted to 85 % of
3 maximum dry unit weight with a low concentration of
Strain (%)
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Strain (%)
Strain (%)
3 3
4 Rc=85% 4 Rc=85%
5 Rc=90% 5 Rc=90%
Rc=95% 6 Rc=95%
6
7 7
4 Rc=85% 4 Rc=85%
samples with a lime and b CKD
which cured for an hour 3 Rc=90% 3 Rc=90%
2 2
1 1
0 0
0 2 4 6 0 2 4 6
Percentage (%) Percentage (%)
a collapse index of 0.17, while the samples stabilized with stabilized with lime and CKD equal to 5 % by dry weight
potassium chloride (with the same dry unit weight and of soil and compacted to 85 % of maximum dry unit
concentration) have a higher collapse index of 0.39. This weight was 0.13 and 0.23 for CKD and lime, respectively,
procedure was repeated with solutions with concentrations which is significant as it reduces the degree of collapse to
of 1.25 and 2 mol/lit and for compaction to 90 and 95 % of slight; on the other hand, samples stabilized with 5 % lime
the maximum dry unit weight; ammonium sulfate has more or CKD by dry weight of soil and compacted to 90 % of
contributions to the reduction in collapse index of the soils. maximum dry unit weight have the collapse index magni-
Figure 6 shows that when the compacted samples are tude of less than 0.1, which relates to non-collapsible soils.
stabilized with CKD and lime, there would be a significant This procedure was also observed in samples, which were
decrease in collapse index. Samples stabilized with 0.5 % cured for 7, 14 and 21 days. Figure 7 shows the effect of
CKD by dry weight of soil and compacted to 85 % of the compaction and percentage of additive on the collapse
maximum dry unit weight while not cured had a collapse index of stabilized samples with lime and CKD, which
index of 2.69, while the collapse index of samples at the were cured for 21 days. It should be noted that in stabilized
same condition but stabilized with lime was 2.78. The samples with lime or CKD, the difference between results
collapse index decreases with increasing stabilizer content. from remolded samples with different dry unit weights is
The results show that the collapse index of samples negligible.
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7 days
85 % of maximum dry unit 2
weight 14 days
21 days
1.5
0.5
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Percentages (%)
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