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C. Rajakumar ¹, T. Meenambal ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Karpagam College of Engineering, Coimbatore-641 032, T.N., IN
2 Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore-641013, T.N., IN

Abstract

The growing cost of traditional stabilizing agents and the need for the economical utilization of industrial and agricultural wastes has prompted an investigation into the stabilizing potential of coal ash (CA), groundnut shell ash (GSA) and bagasse ash (BA) in highly expansive soil. In this study an attempt has been made to utilize the industrial and agricultural wastes such as coal ash, groundnut shell ash and bagasse ash as a stabilizing agent. The effect of industrial and agricultural wastes under individual and combinations (equal proportion) of mix proportions on certain properties of soil such as Optimum Moisture Content (OMC), Maximum Dry Density (MDD), Unconfined Compressive (UCC) Strength and CBR has been studied. Index properties of natural soil showed that it belongs to CH in the IS classification system, soils under this group have poor engineering benefit. It has been observed that 30% of CA and 8% of GSA and BA for individual mix proportions and 12% CA + 12% GSA, 16% CA + 16% BA and 16% BA + 16% GSA for the combinations of mix proportions, are the optimum percentage that gives the maximum CBR value.

Keywords

Coal Ash, Bagassh Ash, Groundnut Shell Ash, CBR.

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C. Rajakumar ¹, T. Meenambal ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Karpagam College of Engineering, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, IN
2 Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Government College of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, IN

Abstract

Expansive soils show extensive volume and their strength changes at varying moisture content due to their chemical composition. This causes significant structural damage to foundations, including pavements. One way of overcoming these problems in soils is to stabilize them with admixtures. Owing to this fact, continuous researches have been carried out and still being carried out by individuals, firms and institutions on ways to improve the engineering properties of soils. The need to bring down the cost of soil stabilizers and the environmental damage has led to intense global research towards economic utilization of wastes for engineering purposes. Bagasse ash is a waste-product of the sugar refining industry. This study was carried out to determine the effect of bagasse ash utilization for road application on clay. The laboratory investigations are carried out to examine the index and engineering properties of the soil sample. The soil falls under CI category of Indian standard soil classification system. The experiments have been carried out to study the changes in the properties of soil such as plasticity characteristics, free swell index, pH, calcium carbonate content, total dissolved solids and cation exchange capacity using bagasse ash in varying percentages of 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10%. The study shows promising results with effective utilization of bagasse ash in the improvement of soil strength.

Keywords

Expansive Soil, Bagasse Ash Utilisation, CBR Chemical Properties, Soil Strength.

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