Improvement of Soil using Fly Ash and Stone Dust

Abstract

Soil improvement is of major concern in the construction activities due to rapid growth of urbanization and industrialization. The term soil improvement is used for the techniques which improve the index properties and other engineering characteristic of weak soils. In India expansive soil cover about 0.8x106 km2 area which is approximately one-fifth of its surface area. These soils contain montmorillonite mineral; due to this they swell and shrink excessively with change of water content. Such tendency of soil is due to the presence of fine clay particles which swell, when they come in contact with water, resulting in alternate swelling and shrinking of soil due to which differential settlement of structure takes place. Expansive soils can be stabilised by the addition of a small percentage of lime and other admixtures.