Assessment of the Geotechnical Properties of Red Earth Stabilized Using Quarry Dust and Cement

Abstract

The present investigation aims at improving the engineering properties of red earth by incorporating quarry dust (QD) and analyze the results thus obtained by conducting a comparative study with the basic soil. Red earth is widely spread over a large part of peninsular India. Red earth/red soil could yield better results by the addition of rough-textured granular quarry dust and a hydraulic binder like cement. QD is the output from the rubble crushing units. Red earth was replaced with different proportions of quarry dust by dry mass of the soil: QD (5–30%, with an increment of 5%) with cement (2–6%) for the optimum QD-soil mix. The geotechnical properties like specific gravity, consistency limits, compaction, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and triaxial compression test were performed on the red earth as well as on the mixes as per Indian Standard Codal provisions. UCS test results conclude that an optimum percentage of replacement of red earth by QD is 10% which yielded maximum strength than other mixes. It was observed that on replacement of red earth by granular quarry dust and cement, the shear strength properties and other geotechnical properties were improved. Thus, the utilization of granular industrial by-products has proven to be socially and economically beneficial. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.