Soil Stabilization with Brazilian Iron Ore Tailings to Produce Rammed Earth

Brazil is one of the world’s leading producers of iron ores and, as a result, has a large generation of iron ore tailings (IOT). Minas Gerais is the second IOT producer in the country and has had two accidents with tailings dams in the last ten years. Because of that, this paper aimed to analyse the stabilization of the regional soil with iron ore tailing sediment (IOT-S) collected at the Doce River basin to produce rammed earth (RE). All of the materials were characterised by physical and chemical analysis. The IOT-S was classified as silt-sandy and the soil as clayey. The mixtures of soil-IOT were analysed by compaction energy, dry density, and optimum moisture content, and cylindrical specimens were analysed by the compressive strength test at 28 days. The mix with 90% IOT and 10% soil showed an adequate granulometric curve and mechanical behaviour to produce RE. Mini walls (200 × 300 × 600 mm) were made with 90IOT-10Soil mix and analysed by compressive strength and deformation. The results indicated that the soil-IOT mix samples reached values above the Brazilian standard limits. The dry density and compressive strength increased after adding IOT-S without cementitious stabilisers.