Innovative ground improvement techniques for expansive soils

Abstract

Annual infrastructure damage expenses arising from expansive problematic soils cost millions of dollars.

On the Recent Trends in Expansive Soil Stabilization Using Calcium‐Based Stabilizer Materials (CSMs): A Comprehensive Review

“…Dafalla and Shamrani [62] noted that if preliminary geotechnical investigation of expansive soils in subgrades of pavements is not carried out prior to construction, it may lead to improper drainage and premature structural failures. Puppala and Pedarla [63] stressed the need of utilizing ecofriendly and economical waste materials such as bagasse ash, which offers high strength and more durability, to build subgrades over expansive soils [64][65][66][67]. ese swelling soils are also present in the Middle East and Gulf countries including Pakistan, Iran, India, Oman, and Saudi Arabia that largely affects the lightly loaded civil engineering structures [40,68].…”

“…e search for state-of-the-art potential stabilizing materials to deal with the problematic soils is always in progress. e reasons which draw the attention of geotechnical engineers to 4 Advances in Materials Science and Engineering employ CSM are as follows: (1) the replacement with coarse grained materials may be uneconomical because the expansive soil layers are extended deep and in irregular pattern, (2) the presence of Ca 2+ ions speeds up the pozzolanic reactions [63] and tends to decrease the P s , (3) it is a hot topic and is widely practiced in field nowadays, (4) the prewetting technique among other takes higher time (several years) for soils with low hydraulic conductivity [73], and (5) recycling gains environmental and economic benefits by reducing the usage of natural resources which leads to development of low-emission and low-energy technologies [74]. e stabilizing materials with Ca 2+ lower down the P s by two mechanisms: (1) by stabilizing the structure of clay particles using cation exchange and (2) by increasing the concentration of cations held between soil within water and thus depleting the double layer thickness [72].…”

The Behavior of the Flexible Plate – Supported with SiCC-Mortar Column on Expansive Soil

“…Chemically, lime is widely used to stabilize expansive soil at a shallow depth of up to 1 m. Many investigators studied a deep mixing method using lime-columns or lime/cement-columns to strengthen expansive soil, e.g. Tonoz et al (2003), Rao and Thyagaraj (2003), Hewayde et al (2005), and Puppala and Pedarla (2017). These researchers explain that the lime or cement column technique can also serve as a mini pile foundation which functions to control the uplift force and deformation.…”

“…The calcium ions from lime will penetrate into soil and migrate into the soil surrounding the column and will be enclosed by the limecolumn (Abiodun & Nalbantoglu, 2015). The lime column, which is moistened with water, will react more rapidly than the column that is not moistened (Abiodun and Nalbantoglu, 2015;Puppala & Pedarla, 2017). When the columns are applied to support an upper structure, such as pavement, the system can be modeled as a piled-flexible plate (Core and Siddiqui, 2013;Diana et al, 2016;Puri, 2017;Huang et al, 2017).…”

Studying the Use of Microbial Induced Calcite Precipitation as a Shallow Stabilization Alternative to Treat Expansive Soils

“…Expansive soils a tend to swell when moisture is increased and shrink when moisture is decreased . High plasticity clays, overconsolidated clays rich with montmorillonite clay minerals, and highly weathered shales are some examples of expansive soils (Puppala and Pedarla 2017). Expansive soils are generally found in regions with arid or semi-arid climate conditions (Hussein 2001).…”