Stabilization of a Clayey Soil with Fly Ash and Lime: A Micro Level Investigation

Pavement structures on poor soil sub grades show early distresses causing the premature failure of the pavement. Clayey soils usually have the potential to demonstrate undesirable engineering behavior, such as low bearing capacity, high shrinkage and swell characteristics and high moisture susceptibility. Stabilization of these soils is a usual practice for improving the strength. This study reports the improvement in the strength of a locally available cohesive soil by addition of both fly ash and lime. Analysis using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis, zeta potential and pH value test was carried out in order to elucidate the stabilization mechanism. The micro level analysis confirmed the breaking of montmorrillonite structure present in the untreated clay after stabilization. In the analysis, it was also confirmed that in the stabilization process, pozzolanic reaction dominated over the cation exchange capacity.