Vipulanandan p–q model to predict compressive, tensile strengths and swelling of CaSO4 contaminated high plasticity clay modified with polymer

Abstract

The compressive stress (σ)-strain (e) relationship, tensile strength, and percentage of swelling of contaminated high plasticity clay (CH) soil treated with acrylamide solution (PS) were studied. The CH soil has been contaminated with different amounts of CaSO4 for analysis. The concentration of CaSO4 in the soil was varied from 0 to 4% (0–40,000 ppm) by the weight of dry soil. To characterize the performance of CaSO4 contaminated CH soil, the effect of treating the soil with PS was studied and compared to contaminated CH soil treated with 6% of lime. The soil stabilizer (PS) content was varied by up to 15% (by dry soil weight). With 4% of CaSO4 contaminated CH soils, the compressive and tensile strengths of the CH soil decreased by 51% and 49% respectively. The free swelling [FS (%)] of the CH soil increased from 16% to 23% when the amount of CaSO4 increased from 0 to 4%. X-Ray and TGA techniques examination were done to characterize the mineralogy of the soil due after contamination and treatment. The total weight loss of the contaminated soil with 4% of CaSO4 reduced from 1.34 to 0.33% when the contaminated soil treated with 1.5% of the polymer at the temperature range between 25 and 120 °C. Vipulanandan (p–q) model was used to quantify the compressive stress–strain behavior and percentage of swelling versus time of treated CH soil contaminated with CaSO4.