Comparison of Compaction Characteristics of Non-conventional Conventional Stabilizers

Roads play an important role in connecting traffic all over the world. It is crucial as it helps to grow and develop a nation. In past decades, ingress of water in the rainy season weakens the road’s soil base. From the beginning of road stabilization, water was one of the main problems. So now researchers have come with an idea of water-proofing the soil and recently, they introduced nano-chemicals. Previous literature surveys show that the presence of only small amount of nano-material in the soil could influence significantly the physical and chemical behaviour of soil. The main objectives of the study are to determine the compaction and shear strength properties of various soil combinations prepared by mixing the nano-chemical solutions, to obtain the optimum dosages of nano-chemical agent corresponding to higher MDD and shear strength values. The nano-chemicals Terrasil and Zycobond are collected from Gujarat, India, for the stabilization studies. Experimental programme is carried out on the clayey-silt soil treated with different dosages of Terrasil, Zycobond and cement. Results obtained are compared and studied. UCS strength is found to be increasing with increase in dosage of stabilizer and curing period. The optimum dosage of Terrasil and Zycobond is obtained as 0.8 kg/m³ by weight of soil and also the strength maximum for 7% cement content. This improvement may be possible due to the reaction of the chemical with the soil particles and as a result Terrasil waterproofs the surface and Zycobond improves strength.