Discovery

The International Daily journal

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ISSN 2278 – 5469 EISSN 2278 – 5450

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Shrinkage behaviour of expansive clays stabilized

using vermiculite
Publication History
Received: 7 August 2015
Accepted: 13 September 2015
Published: 9 October 2015

Citation
Aman Sharma, Anurag Prabhakar, Praveen Kumar Garg, Muthu kumar M, Sekar SK. Shrinkage behaviour of expansive clays
stabilized using vermiculite. Discovery, 2015, 40(184), 274-278

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 SHRINKAGE BEHAVIOUR OF EXPANSIVE CLAYS STABILIZED USING
VERMICULITE

Aman Sharma, Anurag Prabhakar & Praveen Kumar Garg

B.Tech Civil Engg students, School of Mechanical & Building Sciences, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

M. Muthu kumar
Asso. Professor, School of Mechanical & Building Sciences, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
Email:mmuthukumar@vit.ac.in

S.K. Sekar
Senior Professor & Dean, School of Mechanical & Building Sciences, VIT University, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India
Emai:l sksekar@vit.ac.in

ABSTRACT: Expansive soils are considered as highly problematic soils because of its swell-shrink behaviour.
Several stabilization techniques have been adopted to modify the properties and also to improve the shear
strength of expansive soils. Vermiculite a hydrated magnesium aluminium silicate mineral found in various parts
of the world. Vermiculite particles have high cation exchange capacity and also have a good moisture retention
capacity. Hence an attempt is made to study the behaviour of expansive soils stabilized using vermiculite. In this
present work, shrinkage behaviour of the expansive soil was studied by varying the percentage of vermiculite.
Axial shrinkage, radial shrinkage, volumetric shrinkage and the loss of moisture for varying shrinkage periods
have been studied. From this study it is observed that both axial and radial shrinkage tends to decrease with
increase in the percentage of vermiculite, whereas volumetric shrinkage tends to increase with increase in the
percentage of vermiculite .This study proves that vermiculite is very effective in controlling the volume change
behaviour of expansive soils.

Keywords: Expansive soils, stabilization, vermiculite, shrinkage, admixtures

1 INTRODUCTION

The problems posed by expansive soils have been recorded all over the world. This soil swells and
becomes slushy during rainy seasons and shrinks and becomes hard during summer seasons (Chen,
1988). These soils is one of the major soil deposits in India and spreads over the states of
Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Structures
constructed on these soils undergo severe distress because of its volume change behaviour. Hence
these expansive soils can be used as clay liners. These containment barriers are used to prevent the
migrations of leachates from waste because of its very low permeability characteristics. These
expansive soils which are highly impermeable can be used as a clay liner provided the volume
change behaviour can be controlled effectively. Several physical stabilization and chemical
stabilization techniques are in practice to stabilize the expansive soils (Behzad Fatahi et al, 2013;
Dorota et al, 2013). In physical stabilization expansive clays are replaced with fine sand content but
on the other hand it increases the permeability of the soil. So in the present study vermiculite has
been used to control the volume change behaviour of expansive clays. Vermiculite is a hydrated
magnesium aluminium silicate mineral and is found in many parts of the world as well as many parts
of our country. These vermiculite mineral when heated to a high temperature exfoliates and takes the
form of elongated concertina like particles and becomes light weight, incombustible, highly absorbent
and non-reactive. These vermiculites are extensively find applications in construction industries,
horticulture and agriculture. Research also shows that the vermiculite are used as an absorbent
material for the removal of heavy metals like mercury, chromium, zinc, cadmium and even dyes from
the textile industries (Osman Duman et al, 2015). Hence by using vermiculite not only stabilize the
expansive soils but also helps to absorb heavy metals that contains in the waste disposal. In this
paper the shrinkage properties of the expansive soils have been studied by adding various
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percentage of vermiculite.
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2 EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION

2.1 Soil and Vermiculite

The expansive soil used for the present study was collected from Amalapuram, Andra Pradesh, India
and various index properties of the soil have been determined. Table 1 summarizes the properties of
the soil. According to the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS) the soil is classified as CH. The
vermiculite particle size ranging from 1mm to 4mm has been used for the present study. The physical
of the vermiculite are shown in Table 2.

Table 1: Index properties of soil

Soil properties Value

Specific gravity 2.73

Gravel % 0

Sand % 14

Silt % 44

Clay % 42

Liquid limit % 102

Plastic limit % 20

Shrinkage limit % 12

Free swell index (FSI) % 200

Table 2. Physical properties of vermiculite

Physical Properties
3
Bulk Density 64 – 160 kg/m

Water holding capacity 220 – 325% by wt.

MOH 1- 2

pH 6-9

2.2 Sample preparation

The vermiculite was mixed thoroughly with expansive clays for various percentages. The water
content used was equal to that of the liquid limit of the clay sample. The mixture was placed in the
shrinkage dish and allowed to dry at an ambient temperature of 30˚C. The specimen was allowed to
dry accordance to ASTM C 157 and the changes in weight were observed every day till there is no
further change in weight. As the sample dries it undergoes volumetric shrinkage in all the three
dimensions. After the sample becomes completely dried the specimen thickness and diameter were
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measured. These values are averaged to calculate the axial and radial shrinkage strains using the
equations 1 and 2. The volumetric shrinkage was also determined using mercury displacement
method.
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Axial shrinkage strain

Where: hi – initial thickness and hf – final thickness

Radial shrinkage strain

Where : Di – initial diameter and Df – final diameter

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Effect of vermiculite on axial and radial shrinkage

Axial and radial shrinkage were compared with respect to various percentage of vermiculite. Figure 1
shows the influence of vermiculite on the axial and radial shrinkage of the expansive clays treated
with vermiculite. As expected both axial and radial shrinkage tends to decrease with increase in the
percentage of vermiculite. Reduction in axial and radial shrinkage strains are due to the replacement
of expansive clay content with an vermiculite which is an inert material. Axial strain of untreated
expansive clay sample is 30.4% and the axial strain is reduced to 4.5% when vermiculite is increased
too 25%. Similarly radial shrinkage also decreased from 20% to 4.4% when vermiculite content varied
from 0% to 25%. Comparision of axial and radial strain with various percentage of vermiculite indicate
that the axial strain is more when compared to radial strain. This is true for the untreated expansive
clay samples also. This is due to the fact that because of surface tension effect, the deformation
resistance is more in radial direction when comparted to axial direction. In otherwords it is due to the
arching effect. Figure 2 shows the visual observation of influence of vermiculite on controlling the
volume change behaviour of expansive soils.

Fig 1. Effect of vermiculite on axial and radial shrinkage strains

3.2 Effect of vermiculite on volumetric shrinkage

Figure 3 shows the variation of volumetric shrinkage with increase in the percentage of vermiculite. It
can be seen that the volumetric shrinkage tends to increase with increase in the percentage of
vermiculite For untreated expansive clay the volumetric shrinkage is 11.8% and the volumetric
shrinkage for 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% vermiculite content are 13%, 16.24%, 27.33% and 30%
respectively. The higher the value of volumetric shrinkage , the lower the degree the soil to undergo
volume change. It is noted that the volumetric shrinkage is reduced nearly 60.6% when expansive
clays is replaced with 25% vermiculite.
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 Fig 2. Visual observation of influence of vermiculite on the shrinkage behaviour of expansive soils

Fig 3. Effect of vermiculite on volumetric shrinkage

4 CONCLUSIONS
Based on the results obtained from the study the following conclusions are made:
The axial and radial strain tends to decrease with increase in the percentage of vermiculite. Axial
strain is more when compared to the radial strain because of the arching action.
The axial strain tends to decrease from 30% to 4.7% when the vermiculite is increased from 0% to
25%, whereas radial shrinkage decreased from 20% to 4.4%.
Volumetric shrinkage also tends to increase with increase in the percentage of vermiculite. The
increase in the percentage of volumetric shrinkage indicates that the expansive soils tend to undergo
less volume changes. Hence it is concluded that the use of vermiculite effectively controls the volume
change behaviour and the further study is required to study how permeability of the expansive clays
blended with vermiculite varies in comparison to fine sand content.

REFERENCES

[1] Behzad Fatahi, Thu Minh Le, Behnam Fatahi and Hdi Khabbaz (2013): Shrinkage properties
of soft clay treated with cement and geofibers, Geotech Geol Eng. 31:141 -1435.
[2] Chen, F.H. (1988). “Foundations on Expansive Soils”, 2nd Ed., Elsevier Scientific Publishing
Co., Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
[3] Dorota Izdebska-Mucha, Emilia Wojcik (2013): Testing shrinkage factors comparison of
methods and correlation with index properties of soils,Geotech Geol Engg. 72:15-24.
[4] Osman Duman, Sibel Tunc, Tulin Gurkan Polat, (2015): Determination of absorptive
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properties of expanded vermiculite for the removal of C.I basic Red 9 from aqueous solution:
Kinetic, isothermal and thermodynamic studies, Applied clay science, 109-110, 22-32.
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