Strength Improvement of Gandhinagar Soil Using Microfine Cement as Grout

Grouting technology is a widely accepted soil improvement technique for improving soil parameters like c and ϕ value. The use of microfine cement grout along with sodium silicate can easily deal with the problems associated with ground improvement, toxicity, and costliness of chemical grouts. Grout is injected under pressure into the material to be grouted until it fills the desired void or until the maximum specified pressure is attained and a specific minimum grout flow is reached. The purpose of this study is to investigate the proper grout mix using microfine cement (whose specific area is greater than the normal cement) and silica used in grouting. An attempt has been made to find the optimum grout mix design at various water content (10 and 20%) and cement content (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25%). The paper discusses about strength improvement of loose sandy soil and silty clay soil. The results shows that with the increase in microfine cement content, the strength of soil will increase, and with the increase in the water content, strength of soil decreases. In this study, direct shear test was performed to find shear strength of loose sandy soil. The grouting properties of microfine grout was found to be better as compared to the conventional grout.