Improvement of Clayey Soil with Lime and Industrial Sludge

Abstract

Industrial waste generation has reached up to millions of tons yearly. One way to solve the problems of the large accumulating amount of waste could be to incorporate it into the soil; thus, finding a way for the use of industrial waste could be a quest for soil improvement studies. Industrial sludge in certain pozzolanic form reacts with soil and possesses cementitious properties. This paper illustrates the utilization of lime, steel and copper sludge in improvement of high plasticity clayey soil. The influence of stabilizer type, different curing times and various ratios of lime to sludge are evaluated by Atterberg limits, standard proctor compaction, unconfined compressive strength and unconsolidated undrained strength in triaxial test. The test results show that adding lime and sludge results in an increase in maximum strength. Moreover, the strength of soil increases with the increase of curing time. Utilizing stabilizers also influences plasticity index and compaction parameters. Finally, the results demonstrate that steel sludge has better performance than that of copper sludge in term of strength development.