Environmental benefits of cement and areca nut husk ash on behavior of clay and red clay

Abstract

The swelling and shrinkage characteristics of clay soil types cause many problems in civil engineering works like Laying, buildings and roads constructions. These soil types tend to put challenges to civil engineers as their shearing strength and bearing capacity are extremely low. Many studies have been made to rectify these challenges by using different materials and various innovative ways that could possibly improve the soil engineering properties, as well as reduce environmental hazards in a cost-effective way. This study focuses on the use of areca nut husk ash and cement as admixture to improve the stabilization properties of clay and red clay soil types. The stabilization of soil was tested by adopting the standard methods such as Atterberg’s limit test, Standard proctor test and unconfined compressive strength test by mixing equal proportion of admixture to both soil types with varying percentages of clay (0%, 3%, 4%, 6% and 8%) and red clay (0%, 2%, 3% and 4%) soils. From the results, it was observed that clay soil with 6% of admixture and red clay with 3% admixture were optimum and the findings clearly showed that the stability of clay and red clay soil, can be improved by admixture containing areca nut husk ash and cement and this can be used as a good ground improvement technique in engineering projects.