EFFECT OF SODIUM SILICATE AS LIQUID BASED STABILIZER ON SHEAR STRENGTH OF MARINE CLAY

Abstract

Marine clay is one of the problematic soils found in the development project due to the high compressibility and swelling, and low bearing capacity. A new liquid stabilizing agent, with a commercial brand name of “TX-85” had been introduced in the construction industry for improving the strength and reliability of soils for construction of building and road. Therefore, a laboratory study was led to assess the impacts of sodium silicate on the unconfined compression strength (UCS) and plasticity index of marine clay. The results show that the addition of the sodium silicate can reduce the plasticity and slightly increased the UCS of the soils, also the UCS increased with the duration of curing time. It can be concluded that, the stabilization using sodium silicate can be used as an alternative and economic method in the civil engineering projects.