Strengthening the clayey gravel and sand soils for Subbase course highway using different waste materials

Abstract

The stabilization of clayey gravel and sand soil used in construction of subbase course pavement highway is one of the engineering solutions in order to increase structural capacity of underneath pavement layers. There are many sorts of soil stabilization which are classified into mechanical and chemical methods. Recently, there has been an increasing social concern about the issue of waste management, by production industrial waste and waste disposal. This project presents the study of the influence of waste ceramic dust (WCD) on strength of clayey gravel and sand materials used in construction of subbase course. The subbase collected locally was mixed with waste ceramic dust from (0 to 25%) by weight of dry soil. The target of this study is to clear that waste is often used as filling and reinforcement and for this reason California Bearing Ratio test (CBR) was conducted to research the strength of waste ceramic and plastic strip of subbase material. The application of plastic waste in various forms is one among the emerging areas of ground improvement technique and there are economic and eco-friendly advantages. A detailed analysis of their results depicts that it is often utilized in the fields effectively and economically as reinforcing materiel. Plastic strips with dimensions (12 mm × 6 mm) are mixed with soil containing the optimum proportion of ceramic dust and California bearing tests are conducted. The effect of waste plastic strip (WPS) content is 0.5% to2% (by weight of sub base material) on the CBR of strip reinforced subbase was studied. The ratio is decided by changing its length and width. From the CBR on soil with and without plastic reinforcements, it had been found that after reinforcement the soil gained its strength appreciably. The best percent of waste ceramic dust was (20%) with waste plastic strip is (1%) which gave higher percent of CBR.