Abstract:
As soil moisture content varies, expansive soils experience significant volume
changes, causing significant damage to foundations built on these soils. To minimize
the problem, the determination of volume change characteristics must be required for
the safe and cost-effective design of structures resting on expansive soils, but the
direct determination of swelling characteristics is time-consuming, expensive, and
requires skilled technicians. Ebinat town is one of the developing town in south
gonder zone administration, amhara regional state, that was put under reform by
urban proclamation in 2012 E.C. at the moment new buildings and infrastructures are
on way of construction requires subsoil exploration. This study provides empirical
equations for swelling pressure using the soil index properties of Ebinat's expansive
soils, which is a simple, effective, and low-cost method. The experimental data
required to predict swelling pressure was obtained from 15 locations in and around
Ebinat town by examining both swell pressure tests and index property tests of 23
samples collected as both disturbed and undisturbed samples up to a depth of 3 m.
The results of laboratory tests on selected location point soils in the study area were
classified as clay and few silt with the potential for expansion by the unified soil
classification system and plastic clay with a high volume change capacity by the
AASHTO classification system.
By combining one or more of the soil index parameters from 12 test pit results and
three control sample as input data for the NCSS 2021 Windows software, the new
equations were developed Log(PS) = LOG (PS)=8.02 - 0.058 *√ LL + 8.497 * Exp
(PL/100)/(lnPL) -20.915 * Exp (w/100)/lnW. predicts that the swelling pressure of the
study area is highly sensitive to the water content and plastic limit and liquid limit.
Keywords: consolidation, expansive soil, swelling pressure, index-property,
regressions.