Freezing-thawing resistance evaluation of sandy soil, improved by polyvinyl acetate and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether mixture

Abstract

Freezing-thawing cycles have significant effect on soils engineering behavior in frozen areas. This effect is more considerable in fine-graded than coarse-grained soils. The objective of this study is improving soil durability and strength in continues freezing-thawing cycles. For getting this purpose mixture of Polyvinyl Acetate (PVAc) and Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether (EGBE) has been added to fine-grained soil and final prepared samples were tested at different freezing-thawing cycles. PVAc was mixed with 1%, 2% and 3% of soil weight. Half of PVAc weight was used as weight of EGBE. Freezing-Thawing cycles were exposed to samples and they were tested at different cycles. Results showed that adding mixture of PVAc+EGBE improved strength and durability of samples up to 10 freezing-thawing cycles. Unconfined compress strength tests were applied to samples and stress and strain of samples were tested on failure time. Behavior of samples was different at different percentages of mixture. Results showed that increasing amount of PVAc from 1% to 2% had more considerable effect on final stress than 2% to 3%. Using higher percentages of PVAc + EGBE mixture leaded to that samples carried more strain before collapsing. Another result gained from tests was that, freezing-thawing effect was more considerable after fourth cycles. It means differences between first and fourth cycles were more considerable than differences between fourth and tenth.