Soil stabilisation for laying road foundations: Way forward with organic soil treatment

Abstract

In Malaysia, the remediation of soils polluted by organic compounds is a challenging issue in environmental engineering. Improper treatment and conventional remove-and-replace approaches have low performance in terms of cost and sustainability. Hence, chemical stabilisation has been utilised worldwide to enhance the engineering properties of organic soils. This study focused on stabilising organic soil using cementitious-based chemicals blended with netted-polymeric fibre to improve its strength. This paper reviews the relevant past work as a basis for work in the pipeline. The study aims to determine the effectiveness of netted-polymeric fibre reinforcement on the shear strength characteristics of the stabilised organic sand. The fibre has tensile resistance that can be mobilised by normal pressures acting on fibre reinforcement soil. The best mixture of sand, clay, organic content and stabiliser for organic soil treatment will be identified as the way forward. The shear strength characteristics of the stabilised organic soil samples would then be evaluated parametrically using field application considerations.