Stabilisation of lateritic soil with pulverised ceramic waste for road construction

Abstract

Lateritic soil is used for the construction of road pavement layers in the tropics. The engineering properties of lateritic soil can be improved by using additives in order to make it suitable for road pavement construction. Such additives can be agricultural waste or other suitable materials. In this research, the influence of adding varying proportions of pulverised ceramic waste (PCW) to lateritic soil was evaluated. The materials used for the study were lateritic soil and PCW samples. The control and lateritic soil samples with addition of 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 12.5% PCW were considered for specific gravity, grain size analysis, Atterberg limits, compaction, California bearing ratio and unconfined compressive strength tests. The plasticity index reduced from 12.17% to 11.98% from the control (0%) to 12.5% addition of PCW; the maximum dry density increased from 1.76 to 1.95 kN/m3 while the corresponding optimum moisture content of the lateritic soil decreased from 14.76% to 11.63%. The specific gravity of the lateritic soil and PCW were 2.63 and 2.82 respectively. The addition of 12.5% PCW increased the California bearing ratio and the unconfined compressive strength of the lateritic soil by 129% and 175% respectively.