Effect of calcium and chloride based stabilizer on plastic properties of fine grained soil

Abstract

In soil mechanics, water is an important constituent of soil. Hence, presence of water may alter the properties of soils significantly. Geotechnical properties of fine-grained soils are very close related to consistency limits. The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of calcium and chloride based stabilizers i.e. eggshell powder (ESP) and sodium chloride (NaCl) on plastic properties of randomly distributed polypropylene fiber (PPF) reinforced fine grained soil. A statistical method namely, The Taguchi technique was applied to produce trial conditions for experiments and optimization. A series of consistency limits tests was conducted on parent and treated soil in laboratory. ESP (3%-9%), NaCl (2%-6%) and PPF (0.05%-0.15%) by total dry weight of solid mixture were taken for the preparation of specimens and air entraining admixture (AEA) was also used in the experiments. Series A (W+0% AEA), Series B (W+0.05% AEA) and Series C (W+0.15% AEA) were used as the mixture liquid. Experimental results showed that the most effective material to decrease the plasticity index of the samples were PPF, ESP and NaCl for series A, series B and series C respectively. The values of plasticity index for series A, series B and series C in optimized conditions were found 1%, 3% and 1% respectively.