Compaction and shear strength enhancement of weak soil by copper slag addition

Abstract

Industrial explosion not only put thrust to the resource exploitation but also produces lot of wastes that need proper disposal. This is being researched at various levels and domains, Civil engineering industries also help in utilization of various industrial wastes such as fly ash, slags, industrial plant processed wastes etc in the construction process. Copper slag is one of the industrial by product produced which need to be disposed properly or reused. Copper slag is naturally enriched with iron silicates, calcium oxide, and alumina, with lesser quantities of copper, lead, zinc, and other metals. In this study, Natural Alluvial soil is added with copper slag of 1 and 2% proportions to that of its total weight for stabilization. Soil samples with and without copper slag is studied to obtain the tensile strength and load carrying capacity. It is found that increasing the content of copper slag in the soil increases the tensile strength multiple times and also there is considerable amount of increase in CBR. The soil shows resistance to penetration with the increasing content of copper slag, which is evident in this study, hence copper slag upto 3% is found to be effective in enhancing soil strength characteristics.