| In many parts of the United States expansive soils pose a significant hazard to civil infrastructure. These kinds of soils owe their characteristics to the presence of swelling clay minerals. As they get wet, they swell; conversely, as they dry they shrink. Many stabilization methods have been developed over the years to mitigate the adverse effects of expansive soil. One of them is the use of the ionic additive EcSS 3000. Previous application of this additive and experiments showed that this is an effective stabilizer on expansive soil and reduces the shrink swell potential of soil by changing the internal structure of the soil. In this research, soil samples from a specific construction site in Texas treated with this additive, and Oklahoma soil samples treated with this additive in the lab were tested to determine the suction, SWCC, volume change, swelling, suction compression index and other index properties of both treated and untreated soils. From laboratory tests and analysis, it was found that, this additive is effective in reducing swelling of both Texas and Oklahoma soils. The effect of this chemical on the soil is permanent. This additive reduces the suction compression index for some of the soil samples, however, based on limited number of test results, a definitive trend is not observed. Based on all the test results, the optimum concentration for the chemical additive was found to be 1:300. |
