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Comparative study of the performance of Ordinary Portland Cement and a

waste material in soft soil stabilisation

Conference Paper · June 2015

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Hassnen Mosa Jafer W. Atherton

University of Babylon Liverpool John Moores University
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Felicite Mary Ruddock E. Loffill

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Comparative study of the performance of Ordinary Portland
Cement and a waste material in soft soil stabilisation

Hassnen M Jafer1, 3, W Atherton2, F Ruddock2, and E Loffil2

1
Postgraduate Research Student, Liverpool John Moores University, School of the Built
Environment, Henry Cotton Building,15-21 Webster Street, Liverpool, L3 2ET, UK
2
Liverpool John Moores University, School of the Built Environment, Peter Jost Enterprise Centre,
Byrom Street, Liverpool, L3 3AF, UK.
3
University of Babylon, College of Engineering, Civil Engineering Department, Babylon, Iraq.

E-mail address: H.M.Jafer@2014.ljmu.ac.uk

Abstract. The soft soil in locations designated for civil engineering projects form one
of the most common problems in many parts of the world. The accepted usual method
of soft soil mitigation is to replace the soft soil with stronger materials. Due to the high
cost of this method, researchers have been driven to look for alternative methods,
which include the process of soil stabilization. Soil stabilisation has traditionally relied
on treatment with lime, cement, and special additives such as Pozzolanic materials. To
reduce the usage of cement and lime as the most traditional stabilizers for soft soils,
sustainable waste materials have been increasingly used for soil stabilisation. This
paper represents the results of a laboratory comparative study between the use of a
waste fuel ash (WFA) and Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) in silty clayey soil
stabilisation. The WFA used in this study is produced from the incineration processes
from domestic energy power stations. An intermediate plasticity silty clayey soil with
medium organic matter content has been used in this study. The comparison between
the effects of WFA and OPC on the physical and engineering properties of the selected
soil was conducted dependant on the results obtained from the consistency limits,
compaction characteristics (optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry
density (MDD)); along with the unconfined compressive strength test (UCS). Different
percentages of WFA and OPC were added to the soft soil (1.5, 3, 6, 9, and 12%) to
produce various admixtures. Improvement levels were evaluated dependant on the
UCS tests carried out on specimens at different periods of curing (zero, 7, 14, and 28
days). Results indicated that WFA improved the physical properties of the soft soil
significantly, where the index of plasticity (IP) was decreased from 21 to 13.64 with
12% of WFA. The results of the unconfined compressive strength test indicated that
12% of WFA developed the UCS, from 202kPa for untreated soil to 500kPa for 28
days cured samples, which is equal to approximately 2.5 times of the UCS value for
untreated soil. On the other hand, 12% OPC increased the UCS significantly from
202kPa (untreated samples) up to 1290kPa after 28 days of curing, which is around 6.4
times the UCS value for untreated soil.

Keywords: Soft soil stabilisation, waste materials, OPC, and unconfined compressive
strength.

1. Introduction
Soil stabilization is a technique considered by the geotechnical engineers several decades ago in order
to modify the undesired soil to be capable of meeting the requirements of the specific engineering
projects (Kolias, et.al. 2005). More specifically, soil stabilisation helps the engineer in being able to
employ the natural soil of a project’s site as a construction material with specific properties, especially
strength, volume stability, as well as, to reduce the cost of construction for the base layer and modify
the performance of structure (Modarres and Nosoudy, 2015).
Soil stabilisation has been achieved traditionally by using binder materials such as lime and cement
with or without special pozzolanic additives which are called sometimes supplementary cementitous
materials (SCM), such as pulverised fuel ash (PFA), rice husk ash (RHA), silica fume (SF), etc. as
indicated in numerous of researches (Ahmed et al., 2011; Farouk and Shahien, 2013; Manso, et al.,
2013; Fattah et al., 2014; and Modarres and Nosoudy, 2015).
Occasionally, the desired level of soil improvement requires a small amount of cement or lime to make
the soil meet the engineering requirement of a specific engineering project. These amounts can be fully
replaced by particular types of waste materials which have a property to behave as cementitious
materials in order to reduce the cost and the negative environmental impact caused by OPC
manufacturing. In this study, a fly ash of a waste material (WFA) was used as SCM in soft soil
stabilisation and the results obtained from soil stabilised with WFA were compared with those for soil
treated with OPC.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1 Materials
2.1.1. The soft soil sample
The soft soil used in this study was collected from a site located in High Town to the north of Liverpool.
The soil samples were extracted from the riverbank of the estuary of the River Alt from a depth about
300-500mm below ground level. The site in general, is an alluvial plain and the soil’s visible description
is medium soft, dark grey clayey silt with traces of sand and the smell of algae. Table 1 contains the
main physical and engineering properties of the selected soil. According to the Unified Soil
Classification System (USCS), and depending on the particle size distribution, LL, and IP, the soil in
this research project is an intermediate plasticity silty clay with sand (CI).

Table 1. Main physical and engineering properties of the soft soil.

Property Value
Natural moisture content NMC % 52.14
Liquid Limit LL % 44
Index of Plasticity IP 20.22
Sand % 13.08
Silt % 43.92
Clay % 43.00
Specific Gravity (Gs) 2.61
γdmax g/cm3 1.57
Optimum moisture content OMC % 23
pH 7.78
Organic matter content % 7.95
Unconfined Compressive Strength qu, kPa 202

2.1.2. OPC
Commercially available cement type CEM-II/A/LL 32.5-N was brought from Cemex quality
department, Warwickshire, UK.
2.1.3 Waste material fly ash (WFA)
Fly ash of a waste material produced from the incineration processes in local power plant was used in
this study. WFA has a significant amount of calcium oxide (CaO), as well as, a suitable content of silica.
2.2. Methods
Three fundamental tests were conducted to investigate the effect of WFA on the physical and
engineering properties of the soft soil compared with those for the same soil treated with OPC in this
study. These tests were:
 Atterberg limits test - (Liquid Limit (LL), Plastic Limit (PL), and Index of Plasticity (IP)).
These limits were determined in accordance to BS 1377-2:1990 (British Standard, 1990). A
Cone Penetrometer device was used to find the LL.
 Standard Proctor compaction test - conducted in accordance to BS 1377-4:1990 (British
Standard, 2002), 2000g of dry powdered soil was mixed with five different water contents. For
 each value of water content, soil paste was compacted in a standard mould using a 2.5kg
hammer with three layers; each layer was subjected to 25 blows. Note: the percentages of WFA
and OPC added to the soil with respect to Atterberg limits and compaction tests were 1.5, 3, 6,
9, 12, and 15% from the dry weight of the soft soil.
 Unconfined compressive strength test - carried out according to BS 1377-7:1990 (British
Standard, 1998) on four groups for each corresponding percentage of WFA which were tested
for four different periods of curing (zero, 7, 14, and 28 days).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Atterberg limits
Figures 1 (a) and (b) show the LL, PL, and IP for the soft soil treated with different percentages of WFA
and OPC respectively. It can be seen in both cases that the LL and PL increased with increase of WFA
and OPC but the increase in PL is more than that for LL which leads to decrease in the value of IP (as
IP is the result of LL – PL). However, the soil treated with WFA indicated values of IP less than those
for the soil stabilised with OPC, for example, 12% of WFA decreased IP from 21 to a value under 14.
These changes in Atterberg limits of the soft soil are due to the exchange of cations ions occurring
between the clay minerals in the soft soil and the binder materials (Gharib, et. al, 2012).
LL PL IP LL PL IP
60 60

50 50
Water content (%)

Water content (%)

40 40

30 30

20 20

10 10
0 3 6 9 12 15 0 3 6 9 12 15
WFA content (%) OPC content (%)

(a) (b)
Figure 1. The relationship of the Atterberg limits of the soft soil with (a) WFA%, and (b) OPC%.

3.2. Compaction parameters

This test was conducted for soil mixed with different percentages of WFA and OPC (1.5, 3, 6, 9, and
12%) of the dry weight to determine the value of MDD and OMC for each corresponding percentage
of additive. The values obtained are very important to prepare the specimens provided for other
geotechnical experimental work such as UCS and consolidation tests. The compaction parameters for
the soft soil mixed with WFA and OPC are shown in Figures 2 (a) and (b) respectively.
0.0% WFA 1.5% WFA 0.0% OPC 1.5% OPC
3.0 % WFA 6.0 % WFA 3.0 % OPC 6.0 % OPC
9.0 % WFA 12.0 % WFA 1.58 9.0 % OPC 12.0 % OPC
1.58
1.56 1.57
1.56
1.54
1.55
DRY DENSITY G/CM3

DRY DENSITY G/CM3

1.52
1.54
1.50 1.53
1.48 1.52
1.46 1.51
1.44 1.50
1.49
1.42
1.48
1.40
1.47
1.38 1.46
1.36 1.45
1.34 1.44
15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
WATER CONTENT % WATER CONTENT %

(a) (b)
Figure 2. Compaction parameters: (a) soil treated with WFA, and (b) soil treated with OPC.
From Figures 2 (a) and (b) it can be seen that MDD decreased significantly and OMC increased
significantly with the continuous increase of WFA rather than those for the soil treated with OPC and
this illustrates the high water absorption property of WFA.
3.3. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS)
The results of UCS tests are shown Figures 3 (a) and (b) which represent the development of UCS
values with time of curing for the soil treated with WFA and OPC respectively. From this figure, it can
be noticed that for both cases the UCS increased with increase of the binder content, as well as, with
increase of the curing period. Furthermore, it can be seen that the soil treated with 12% of WFA
indicated approximately 500kPa for the 28 day specimens, while the same percentage for OPC at same
curing age, provided a much higher value of UCS (approximately 1300kPa). This improvement for
UCS happened due to the hydration reactivity of the CaO of both FWA and OPC, but it should be noted
that the coarse particles for WFA retarded the hydration reaction of this material which caused to
decrease the improvement level for UCS when comparing with OPC.
0% WFA 1.5% WFA 3.0% WFA 0% OPC 1.5% OPC 3.0% OPC
6.0% WFA 9.0% WFA 12.0% WFA 6.0% OPC 9.0% OPC 12.0% OPC

500 1300
450 1100
400
UCS (kPa)

900

UCS (kPa)
350
700
300
500
250
200 300

150 100
0 7 14 21 28 0 7 14 21 28
Age (days) Age (days)

(a) (b)
Figure 3. Development in UCS value with the time of curing for the soil treated with (a) WFA, and
(b) OPC.

4. Conclusions
According to the results obtained from the experimental investigation, the following conclusions can
be drawn:
 WFA used in this study has a positive effect to improve the physical properties for the soft soil
such as Atterberg limits and compaction parameters in comparison with the effect of OPC.
 In spite of OPC improving the UCS for the soft soil to a greater extent than WFA, WFA has a
potential to be a base material for SCM to be used in soil stabilisation as it increased UCS
value by 2.5 times that for untreated soil.
 The coarse particles for WFA used in this study retarded the hydration reactivity. Therefore, it
would provide better results if it were activated physically and/or chemically.

5. References
Ahmed, J., Abdul Rahman, A., Mohd Ali, M., & Rahman, K. (2011) Peat Soil Treatment Using
POFA. IEEE Colloquium on Humanities, Science and Engineering Research (CHUSER 2011),
Penang, 5-6 December 2011.

British Standard, (1998) BS 1377-2, 4, and 7:1990. Method of Test for Soils for Civil Engineering
Purposes. London, UK: British Standard Institution.

Farouk, A., and Shahien, M. (2013) Ground Improvement Using Soil-Cement Columns: Experimental
Investigation. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 52, pp. 733-740.

Fattah, M., Y., Al-Saidi, A., and Jaber, M. (2014) Consolidation Properties of Compacted Soft Soil
Stabilized with Lime-Silica Fume Mix. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 5,
1675-1682.

Gharib, M., Saba, H., and Barazesh, A. (2012) Experimental Investigation of Impact of Adding Lime
on Atterberg Limits in Golestan Province Soils. International Research Journal of Applied and Basic
Science, 3(4), 796-800.
 Kolias, S., Kasselouri, V., and Karahalios, A. (2005) Stabilisation of clayey soils with high calcium
fly ash and cement. Cement & Concrete Composites, 27 (2005), P. 301–313.

MANSO, J. M., ORTEGA-LÓPEZ, V., POLANCO, J. A. & SETIÉN, J. (2013) The use of ladle
furnace slag in soil stabilization. Construction and Building Materials, 40, 126-134.

Modarres, A., and Nosoudy, Y. M. (2015) Clay Stabilisation Using Coal Waste and Lime – Technical
and Environmental Impact. Applied Clay Science, pp. 1-8.

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