Behavior of Natural Pozzolana-Lime-stabilized Clayey Soils Artificially Contaminated by Sulfates

Abstract

The use of lime in sulfate-bearing clayey soils has historically caused structural damage to infrastructures due to the formation of an expansive ettringite mineral. In this paper, a research was conducted to study the effectiveness of natural pozzolana (NP) for providing better stabilization of sulfate-bearing soils. Compaction and free-swell potential tests were first performed on lime-stabilized grey and red clayey soils (GS and RS) containing different contents of added sodium and calcium sulfates (2, 4 and 6% Na2SO4 or CaSO4·2H2O). Then, the same tests were repeated by adding 20%NP. The test results indicated that the presence of 4% and 6% Na2SO4 in the soil resulted in an abnormal increase in the swell potential of both lime-stabilized GS and RS. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) results confirmed the growth of the ettringite mineral responsible for this higher swell potential. However, the use of 8% lime with 20%NP in stabilizing sulfate-bearing clayey soils produced significant improvements in the optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD), as well as in the swell potential. The addition of 20%NP into the lime-stabilized GS and RS eliminated the harmful effect of Na2SO4. In addition, for 120-day curing period, the use of 6% CaSO4·2H2O was found very effective by reducing the swell potential of NP-lime-stabilized GS and RS from 7.33% to 0.4% and from 2.79% to 0.2%, respectively trips. KEYWORDS: Clayey soils, Mineral additives, Sulfates, Compaction, Swell potential, Stabilization.