Rehabilitation of Medium Expansive Soil Using Cement Treatment

Problematic soils such as swelling/shrinking soil are widespread in the middle east and worldwide. this type of soil, upon wetting and drying, causes severe damage to structures built on such soil. rehabilitation of swelling/shrinkage using cement treatment was studied in this work. medium expansive soil (12 < pi < 24) was selected for the present investigation. soil specimens were mixed with various percentages of cement contents (1%, 2%, 3% and 4%) and molded to a range of prescribed pre-wetting dry densities and moisture contents. it was found that 2% cement content cured for 28 days was sufficient to reduce the free swell percentage for medium expansive soil from as high as 7.4% to merely 0.4%. the potential swell pressure, however, was reduced from a damagingly high value (333 kpa) for the untreated soil to a tolerable value (20 kpa) for the same enhancement conditions. swell potential versus time relationship for the natural and stabilized soil could be very accurately represented by a rectangular hyperbolic function.