Control of Shrinkage Characteristics of Expansive Soil by Using Low Compressible Soils

The expansive soils constitute most of the soil types found in India. The use of expansive soils presents serious challenges to the geotechnical engineer as they can lead to excessive settlements and therefore be injurious to the health of major civil engineering structures such as embankments and nuclear power plants. Therefore, understanding the composition of fine particles becomes very important in the geotechnical field, including mineralogy. An expansive soil sample was taken for the purpose of study of shrinkage factors including shrinkage limit and free swell index, and the effect on the various soil parameters was observed. In this study, an attempt has been made to reduce the excessive potential of the expansive soil by adding different proportions of low compressibility soils such as 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and 35% by weight. The analysis of the test results presented in this paper shows that the shrinkage limit and free swelling index are satisfactory and indicate that adding low compressibility clays can reduce the expansive potential of soils, thereby improving their compressibility characteristics. So that the properties of highly expansive soils can be altered with the help of low compressive soil mix in those areas. Such a quick process helps to find solutions to make complex soils suitable for the civil engineering structures.