Stabilisation and characterisation of soil using wollastonite powder

Abstract

In emerging countries like India, foundation extension and advancement request building destinations with soils of predominant attributes as execution of structure fundamentally relies upon the soil conditions. Particularly while raising the structure on feeble soils like expansive soils, it needs most extreme consideration since it terribly influences the execution of the structure by demonstrating high volume change with impact of water content. In order to make the unfortunate expansive soils to achieve geotechnical engineering design requirements, the process of soil stabilization can be applied to improve the strength characteristics of these soils. This study boons the investigation into the improvement of strength characteristics of expansive soils using wollastonite powder as an additive which is naturally available to reduce the cost and other environmental effects. The influence of varying percentages of wollastonite powder in strength increment is observed based on unconfined compression test conducted on two expansive soils with compaction characteristics at varying preserving days of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. From the compaction test, it was detected that Maximum Dry-density was decreased whereas Optimum Moisture content of soils increased with increase in dosage of admixture. The Unconfined compressive strength values of soils treated with WP increased up on addition of 12.5% wollastonite powder then, a slight decrease was observed. However, this value was higher than the untreated soil up on 15% addition of wollastonite powder. Peak stress was observed to 393.6% and 253.9% as compared to untreated soils on addition of 12.5% wollastonite powder at 28 days of curing. Thus, the results showed that, wollastonite powder was effective additive for soil, which could boost stability and condense the cost of process in addition to improve strength and properties.