The swelling properties of modified expansive soil with pine tree sawdust
Necmi Yarbaşı, Ekrem Kalkan
Ataturk University, Oltu Earth Sciences Faculty, Geological Engineering Department, Erzurum, Turkey
Abstract—In this study, the swelling properties of stabilized expansive soil samples were investigated under laboratory conditions. The pine tree sawdust was used as additive material for this experimental study. The pine tree sawdust is waste and organic material in terms of eco-friendly additive materials for soil stabilization. For this purpose, the consistency limit tests and vertical swelling tests were carried out under the laboratory conditions. According to the results of experimental study showed that the swelling behavior of pine tree sawdust-stabilized expansive soil samples positively changed. As a result, the pine tree sawdust played an important role in improving the swelling behavior of the expansive soils. Consequently, it was concluded that the pine tree sawdust can be successfully used to improve the swelling characteristics of expansive soils as an eco-friendly additive material.
Keywords— Soil,Expansive soil, pine tree sawdust, soil stabilization, swelling percentage
I. INTRODUCTION
The expansive soil changes in volume in relation to changes in water content. This occurs as swelling upon wetting, and shrinkage upon drying. These soils have poor volume stability in the presence of water (Jones and Jefferson, 2012; Li et al., 2014). The expansive soil containing rich hydrophilic minerals is a kind of clay soil formed in the natural geological process. These soils are characterized with expansion, shrinkage and consolidability, which is significantly different from general clay (Liu et al., 2019; Miao and Liu, 2001).
Clayey soils are generally classified as expansive soils and these soils are known to cause severe damage to structures resting on them. However, these soils are very important in geology, construction, and for environmental applications, due to their wide usage as impermeable and containment barriers in landfill areas and other environmentally related applications (Erguler and Ulusay, 2003; Harvey and Murray, 1997; Kayabali, 1997; Keith and Murray 1994; Murray, 2000; Sabtan, 2005; Kalkan and Akbulut, 2004; Kalkan et al., 2019; Indiramma et al., 2020; Yarbaşı and Kalkan, 2020).