The possibility of improved dispersive clay soil by powder alum

Abstract

In highways or dams projects, large scale construction, major portions of the works are concerned with large amounts of soil embankments. Civil engineers should understand the fundamental properties of soil mechanics enough to make a decision about selecting the most suitable type of soil. Dispersive clay soil is one type of soil that has special soil properties to reduce soil strength after submersion under water. Its may be a cause of construction failure. Then, it's necessary to adjusting the dispersive clay soil by choose chemical process to improve properties of dispersive clay soil. This paper shows the finding of research into the powder alum to improve the dispersive clay soil properties, The experiments used alum at different percentages of aluminum sulfate as 0%, 0.1%, 0.25%, 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0% by weight soil, respectively. The results showed that the dispersive clay soil with aluminum sulfate 0.1% by weight soil gave improvement of soil mechanics properties and decreasing of dispersive clay soil properties.