Strength Enhancement of Clay Soil Stabilized with Ordinary Portland Cement, Sodium Silicate and Sodium Hydroxide

Environmental-friendly sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate congenial with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) are used as soil stabilizing agents in this study. This research involves experimenting with the use of cement admixed with sodium silicate (SS) and sodium hydroxide (SH) to enhance the strength of clay soil. The type of admixtures, the proportion of admixtures, the binder material, and the curing time were the experimental variables in this study. An unconfined compression test was used to determine the compressive strength of stabilized clay soil with various admixtures. Based on the experimental results, the maximum value of UCS of clay soil was estimated to be 215.22 kPa for the optimum dosage of admixtures (10% OPC + 4% SS + 8 molarity of SH). Besides, the maximum young's modulus of soil was achieved as 8.353 MPa. The effect of pH on the different admixtures of soil samples was evaluated and discussed in this study. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) studies confirm the formation of hydration and pozzolanic constituents and show that after being treated with OPC, SH, and SS, resulted in clay soil appears to form denser microstructures.