Effect of Solid Waste on Swell–Shrink Behaviour of Clay with Intermediate Plasticity

Abstract

Structures in various regions of the world with expansive soils are affected by the poor engineering properties of these soils. The soil experience swelling and shrinkage problems and thus the structure is encountered to get settled or uplifted. This has a significant impact on the infrastructure development of such regions. It has always been a difficult task for engineers to design and build civil engineering structures on such soils. For local earthwork construction, mechanically stabilised clays combined with sand are employed. Expansive soil can cause extremely high lateral pressures on the back of a retaining wall and in this situation, expansive soils are often avoided despite their availability as they can seriously damage the retaining wall structures. Due to that, the reduction of swelling and shrinkage has been recommended to overcome the poor engineering properties of these soils and make the soil appropriate for use as backfill. This study is an attempt to implement comprehensive experimental research into the possibilities of employing solid waste to improve the engineering properties of clay with intermediate plasticity (CI). In this study, solid waste is used in different proportions with CI to know about the influence on swelling and shrinkage. The analysis shows that the replacement of CI with solid waste results in a significant reduction of swelling and shrinkage. The study envisages giving an optimized quantity of solid waste which shows an improvement in swell-shrink characteristics.