World Journal of Engineering Research and Technology

Bisrat Gissila* and Satyendra Mittal

ABSTRACT

This study assessed the effects of cement on the behavior of dispersive soil collected from Gidole road project in ArbaMinch area, Ethiopia. Such soils are easily erodible and keep apart due to variation in moisture content and exchangeable sodium. The quality and strength of a pavement is greatly affected by the type of sub grade soil over which such pavements are to be constructed. To resolve failures related to dispersive soils or improve the strength of sub grade soils, replacing such problematic soil with cohesionless soil is one solution. But in most regions such solutions are not cost effective due to non availability of non-cohesive soils easily. Therefore, this study focuses on stabilizing of dispersive soil with cement material for improving sub-grade of road. The study shows that the cement provides better index properties in terms of liquid limit, plastic limit, plasticity index and reduces sodium cation and dispersivity properties and also It improves California Bearing Ratio and unconfined compression strength. The sub-grade soil of untreated sample was classified as A-7-5 by the AASHTO and MH, CH as per USCS systems which is considered as poor subgrade quality. The subgrade soil was changed to GC and GM groups of soil after different percentage of cement treatment for the first 7 days and 14 days curing periods. Therefore, it can be concluded that cement can improve the engineering properties of dispersive soils. The study shows that the effective cement content should be 5% of dry soil weight as it provides high quality of subgrade pavement rating.

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