Engineering properties of expansive clayey soil stabilized with lime and perlite

Abstract

There are around 6700 millions tons of perlite reserves in the world. Although perlite possesses pozzolanic properties, it has not been so far used in soil stabilization. In this study, stabilization with perlite and lime of an expansive clayey soil containing smectite group clay minerals such as montmorillonite and nontronite was investigated experimentally. For this purpose, test mixtures were prepared with 8% of lime (optimum lime ratio of the soil) and without lime by adding 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of perlite. Geotechnical properties such as compaction, Atterberg limits, swelling, unconfined compressive strength of the mixtures and changes of these properties depending on perlite ratio and time were determined. The test results show that stabilization of the soil with combination of perlite and lime improves the geotechnical properties better than those of perlite or lime alone. This experimental study unveils that the mixture containing 30% perlite and 8% lime is the optimum solution in stabilization of the soil with respect to strength.