Investigation to some Preliminary Geotechnical Properties of Soft Clay Stabilized by Fly Ash Based Geopolymers

Abstract:

The civil engineering projects that includes soft clay within its activities has a serious concern of hazards, such hazards can be overcame by treating the existing soils by certain materials which are named as "stabilizers". The common materials that are highly used in this field are ordinary Portland cement, fly ash, lime and rice husk ash, etc. Each one of these stabilizers has its known shortcomings. The alkali activation of any alumina silicate source produces some kind of cost effective primary binding gel which is known as "Geopolymers". This study is devoted to investigate the role of liquid over fly ash ratio to some soil – FA based Geopolymers geotechnical properties. Such ratio is taken as 2.71, 3.167, 3.8 and 4.75 respectively within the experimental program and the investigated geotechnical properties are the specific gravity, liquid and plastic limit, compaction characteristics and California bearing ratio. The tests results showed that the maximum dry density decreased about 42 % at 2.71 liq/FA whereas this the specific gravity decreased 27 % at the same this ratio. In addition, the 3.8 and 4.75 of such limits revealed no plastic behavior due to the high presence of liquid.

• Periodical: Key Engineering Materials (Volume 857)
• Pages: 259-265
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/KEM.857.259
• Online since: August 2020
• Authors: Jasim M. Abbas*, Amer M Ibrahim, Abdalla M. Shihab
• Keywords: Geopolymers, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Soil Stabilization, X-Ray Diffraction (XRD)

References

[1] D.P. Coduto, Geotechnical Engineering; second edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA, (1999).

[2] E.W. Brand and R.P. Brenner, Soft Clay Engineering, Elsevier, Amesterdam, Netherlands, (1981).

[3] B.B. Broms, Stabilization of soft clay in Southeast Asia, Proceedings of 5th International Geotechnical Seminar, 2 – 4 Dec. (1987), Kazakhstan.

[4] Nicholson. P.G., Soil improvement and ground modification methods, Elsevier, (1987).

[5] J. Khedari, P. Watsanasthaporn and J. Hirunlabh, Development of fiber – based soil – cement block with low thermal conductivity, Cement and concrete composite, Elsevier, 27, (2005), p.111 – 116.

DOI: 10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2004.02.042

[6] J. Davidovits, Geopolymer properties and chemistry, Proceedings of 1st European conference on soft mineralurgy, Compiegne, France, 1988, p.25–48.

[7] M.S Morsy, S.H Alsayed, Y.A Salloum and T Almusallam, Effect of sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratios on strength and microstructure of fly ash geopolymer binder, Arabian Journal for science and engineering, 39 (2014) 4333 – 4339.

DOI: 10.1007/s13369-014-1093-8

[8] B Singhi, A.I. Laskar and A.M Ahmed, Investigation on Soil–Geopolymer with Slag, Fly Ash, Arabian Journal for science and engineering, 41,2 (2016) , p.41393–400.

DOI: 10.1007/s13369-015-1677-y

[9] M. Zhang, H. Gue, T. El-Korchi, G. Zhang and M. Tao . Experimental feasibility study of geopolymer as the next- generation soil stabilizer", Construction and building materials, 47, (2013), p.1468 – 1478.

DOI: 10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.06.017

[10] J. Taha, M.R. Raihan, Z.M. Hameed, and A. Khan, Soil stabilization using lime: advantages, disadvantages and proposing a potential alternative, Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology, 8(4), (2014), p.510–520.

DOI: 10.19026/rjaset.8.1000

[11] J.A. Fernandez and A. Palomo, Composition and microstructure of alkali activated fly ash binder: Effect of the activator, Cement and concrete research, 35, (2005), p.1984 – (1992).

DOI: 10.1016/j.cemconres.2005.03.003

[12] D. Hardjito and B.V. Rangan, Development and Properties of Low-Calcium Fly Ash-based Geopolymer Concrete, Research Report GC1, Faculty of Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, Perth (2005).

[13] F.G. Bell, Lime stabilization of clay minerals and soils. Engineering Geology , 42(4), (1996), p.223–237.

DOI: 10.1016/0013-7952(96)00028-2

[14] C. Liu, and J. Evett, soil and foundation", 6th edition, Prentice Hall, USA, (2003).