Abstract:
Every structure must rest upon soil and the soil at that particular site should be satisfactory for the intended purpose. But unfortunately, nowadays findings show that such satisfactory soils are of rare in occurrence. Generally, the soils, which are unsatisfactory due to their drastic changes in volume with addition or removal of water, and are not suitable for the intended uses are expansive clayey soils. Since construction on these soils cannot be avoided, we have to modify them to be suitable for our construction works. Soil stabilization finds many purposes. The first and most obvious one is strength Improvement i.e. increase the strength of the existing soil to improve its capacity for load bearing. Second reasons are both dust control and soil water proofing. The third purpose of soil stabilization is preserving the natural strength of a soil by obstructing the entry of surface water. The materials required were black cotton soil samples that were dug out from the specified location in the depth range of 0.5m-1.5m of three samples at 0.5m,1m and 1.5m depth. The tests were performed in four phases. The first phase was to determine the geotechnical properties of the soil without adding any additives i.e., characterization. And the rest phases have been performed by adding varying percentages of additives Ash, cement and cement & Ash i.e., hybrids. The S.S.K. Wood Ash was added to the soil sample C in varying percentages to perform Specific gravity, Particle size analysis, Atterberg’s limit, Compaction, CBR, FSI & UCS tests. The same tests had been performed for additives cement (5%,10%&20%) and hybrids (2.5%A+2.5%C,5%A+5%C,15%A+5%C) and determining the effect of S.S.K.W.A on the Engineering properties of black cotton soil when mixed with soils in different ratios. The results showed that the addition of wood Ash and the hybridized additives(%A+%C) increased the OMC, unconfined compressive strength and CBR but decreases FSI,LL&PI of the soil. In general, the stabilization improved the soil compressive strength , reduced its excess liquid& plastic limits moderately and shifted its soil class to next level according to both ASHTO and USCS method.The mix (S.S.K.W.A & BC soil) showed flexible nature during its early curing dates and become stiff as time goes on. Due to this nature, the result showed that less strength, dry density and other engineering properties in its early curing dates.