STUDY ON CHARACTERISTICS OF BLACK COTTON SOIL STABILIZED WITH ENVIROTAC-II AND LIME

Abstract

Exapansive soils, such as black cotton soils, are basically susceptible to detrimental volumetric changes with
change in their moisture content In developing countries like India, the biggest hurdle in the path of providing a complete
network of road system is the limited funds available to construct roads by conventional methods. Utilization of locally
available materials can considerably decrease the construction cost. For instance, utilizing local soils for the construction
of lower layers of the pavement such as sub-base course can bring down the construction cost considerably. But, soil may
show different characteristics at different stretches or even at the same stretch. In many places in India, the soils are not
stable enough to support the wheel loads. Hence, soil stabilization comes into picture. The properties of the soil can be
improved by soil stabilization techniques to meet the designed standards. In this regard, present work concentrates on
investigating the effectiveness of Envirotac II, a vinyl acetate acrylic copolymer, in stabilizing problematic soil which is
taken from the construction site at Halagur, Mandya. Soil sample obtained from the site is stabilized with Envirotac-II in
various proportions (i.e. 0.5%, 0.75%, 1.5% and 2.25%) and 4% Lime is constant throughout the experiments. They are
subjected to extensive laboratory investigations in accordance with standard specifications. From the laboratory studies,
it is found that comparatively there is a considerable improvement in the properties of the soil stabilized with EnvirotacII than the soil without stabilization.