Treatment of expansive clays

Abstract EN

Swelling of expansive soils and the associated movement of foundations cause serious distresses to many structures.

With the existing expansive clays in Irbid, many buildings along with roads and highways have shown severe damages resulting in considerably high maintanence costs.

To avoid such damages prior to construction, expansive clays may be stabilized.

This paper reports the findings of an experimental investigation to reduce swelling properties of Irbid clays.

For this reason two soils from the eastern part of the city were selected.

Several economical stabilization techniques were applied.

These include compacting the soils at various water contents and unit weights, remolding the soils with different proportions of sand, lime and cement and finally using different proportions of salt in the pore fluid.

All techniques were found effective in reducing the expansive behaviour of the tested soild to various degrees.

However, the results of this study indicate that lime stabilization may be best suited for Irbid clays.