IMPACT OF CYCLIC WETTING AND

DRYING ON SWELLING BEHAVIOUR OF

LIME-FLYASH STABILISED SOIL
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the award of degree of

MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY
in
Geotechnical Engineering
by

SHALINI TAMAR
(Roll No:141821)
Supervisor

Dr. RAKESH J. PILLAI

Assistant Professor

CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WARANGAL
June 2016

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

WARANGAL - 506004

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the dissertation entitled IMPACT OF CYCLIC WETTING AND

DRYING ON SWELLING BEHAVIOUR OF LIME-FLYASH STABILISED SOIL is a

bonafide record of work carried out by SHALINI TAMAR (141821), submitted to the faculty of
Department of Civil Engineering, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of degree of
MASTER OF TECHNOLOGY in GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING, from National Institute
of Technology, Warangal, Telangana during the academic year 2014-16.

Dr. Uma Mahesh. N. V

Dr. RAKESH J. PILLAI

Head of the Department

Professor
Dept. of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Warangal- 506 004(T.S.)

(Dissertation Supervisor)
Assitant Professor
Dept. of Civil Engineering
National Institute of Technology
Warangal- 506 004(T.S.)

APPROVAL SHEET
This dissertation entitled IMPACT OF CYCLIC WETTING AND DRYING ON

SWELLING BEHAVIOUR OF LIME-FLYASH STABILISED SOIL, by Shalini Tamar,

Roll No 141811, is approved for the degree of Master of Technology(Civil Engineering) with
specialization in Geotechnical Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Warangal.

Examiners
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Supervisor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chairman
-----------------------------------------

Date: --------------------------------------Place: WARANGAL

DECLARATION
I declare that this written submission represents my ideas in my own words and where others ideas or
words have been included, I have adequately cited and referenced the original sources. I also declare
that I have adhered to all principles of academic honesty and integrity and have not misrepresented or
fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source in my submission. I understand that any violation of
the above will be cause for disciplinary action by the Institute and can also evoke penal action from
the sources which have thus not been properly cited or from whom proper permission has not been
taken when needed.

_____________________________
(Signature)

_____________________________
(Name)

_____________________________
(Roll Number)

Date: ________________________

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is with great pleasure that I acknowledge my sincere thanks and deep sense of gratitude to my
guide Dr. Rakesh J Pillai, Associate Professor, Geotechnical Engineering Division, Department
of Civil Engineering, for his valuable guidance throughout the course of this work.

I express my sincere thanks to Dr. M. Heera Lal, Associate Professor and Head of Geotechnical
Division for his valuable suggestions, constructive cooperation and encouragement at various
stages of thesis work.
I express my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Uma Mahesh. N. V, Professor and Head of the Civil
Department, Dr. V. Ramana Murty, Associate Professor, Dr. P Hari Krishna, Assistant
Professor and Dr. G. Kalyan Kumar, Assistant Professor for sharing their knowledge and
support during the course of this dissertation work.

My special gratitude extends to technical staff of Geotechnical Laboratory for their cooperation
and assistance in carrying out the various tests.

I also express my wholehearted gratitude in huge measure to Y. Sudheer Kumar, research

scholar of Geotechnical Engineering division, my family, my classmates and friends for
their everlasting help, encouragement and moral support throughout my experimental work.

Shalini Tamar
(Roll Number: 141821)

ABSTRACT
Expansion of clays is a worldwide stability problem that causes extensive damage. These types
of soils occur in certain areas characterized by variation of weathering conditions. Those areas
that have surface deposits of clay, and climates characterized by alternating periods of rainfall
and draught, cause significant instability because of their wetting and drying cyclic process. As a
result of this cyclic, swelling and shrinkage, the cracks and deformations can be observed in the
structures established at these zones. Ground improvement methods such as stabilization by
Chemical additives, pre-wetting, squeezing control, overloading, water content prevention are
general applied method for the solution of swelling problems. The most widely used stabilization
method is adding some chemicals to soil. Use of lime, fly ash and cement are the most common
additives applied for stabilization purpose all over the world from earlier times. The stabilization,
especially with lime, is a common applied method among the others due its effective and
economic usage. Findings of previous studies shows that when lime and flyash is added to clay
soil in the presence of water, reactions such as cation exchange, flocculation and pozzolanic
reaction takes place, which are responsible for modification of expansive soil.
In this work, soil was stabilised with lime, flyash, and lime-flyash mix and the cyclic wetting and
drying testing is done on it. The swelling potential and swelling pressure tests have been carried
out on soil mixtures with different amount of lime (2% ,4%, 6%, 8%) and flyash (10%, 15%,
20%). Full swelling-partial shrinkage method was adopted in this study. The X-Ray diffraction
analysis is done to analyse the effects of stabilisation and number of cycles.
The experimental results showed that there was decrease in swelling behaviour of soil, when
treated with lime and flyash. The experiment results show that there was decrease in swelling
behaviour of soil with increasing number of cycles. The effect of number of cycles on lime and
flyash stabilised soil was opposite. However, lime-flyash stabilisation and lime stabilisation was
more effective than flyash stabilisation.