Consolidation Characteristics of Surface Soil Deposits in Kuwait

Abstract

Understanding the characteristics of arid surface soil deposits leads to increasing the confidence level before stabilizing and to applying such materials in the field. Two types of surface soil deposits in Kuwait, sabkha soil and dune sand, have been examined by series of intensive laboratory testing reported in this paper. The chemical, the physical, and the compressibility characteristics of the two soils have been examined and evaluated. A single oedometer test has been carried out in order to obtain the compressibility characteristics and the collapse behavior. This paper has concluded that the samples from sabkha soil have a lower initial void ratio than the samples from dune sands. The lower compressibility parameters values of surface soil deposits and slightly higher collapsibility values of sabkha soils are encouraging that surface soil deposits can be used for construction purposes after the suitable stabilizing technique. Despite their low compressibility, the stabilizing of arid soils should concentrate on reducing salts’ dissolution in these soils during saturation.