Evaluating the performance of soils stabilized using Volcanic Ash and Lime.

Abstract

Long term performance of road structures is significantly impacted by the stability of the underlying soils. In-situ subgrades often do not provide the support required to achieve the acceptable performance under traffic loading and environmental demands. Although stabilization is an effective alternative for improving the soil’s engineering properties, it is quite costly in terms of the materials used during stabilization i.e. lime, cutback bitumen, etc. in this study, the use of volcanic ash (varying from 5%-20%) as an enhancement to lime(2.5%-4%) has been investigated. It had been found that the two materials can be used together to enhance the soil properties of the soil sample. It was found that the strength of the stabilized sample increased with an increase in the volcanic ash. Also using volcanic ash together with lime to achieve higher strength is less costly as compared to using lime only.