Reclaimed Lignin-Stabilized Silty Soil: Undrained Shear Strength, Atterberg Limits, and Microstructure Characteristics
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Volume 30, Issue 11
Abstract
Lignin is an organic industrial by-product, stockpiles of which are rapidly accumulating worldwide. A feasibility investigation was carried out with respect to the stabilization of silty soils using lignin. The fall cone test method was employed to determine the undrained shear strength () and Atterberg limits of the lignin-stabilized silty soil with 7 days of curing. In addition, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was conducted to qualitatively evaluate the changes in the microstructure of silty soil after treatment and better understand the mechanisms controlling the improvement in of the stabilized silty soil. The study revealed that the of silty soil increased with an increase in lignin content. This was mainly attributed to the bonding effect of lignin-based cementing materials, which creates the aggregation of soil particles and fills the pores between detached particles. The liquid limit () increased remarkably with increasing lignin content and the maxium increment of 27% occurred at 12% lignin-stabilized soil. The chemical composition of added lignin had a considerable influence on the Atterberg limits of the stabilized silty soil. The was found to exhibit good exponential decreasing correlation with the moisture content () as well as the liquidity index (). By comparing the values with the empirical models in the literature, the new relationships among , , and liquidity index () were finally proposed for estimating the value of the lignin-stabilized soils. It is concluded that the application of reclaimed lignin as a silty soil stabilizer can be one of many viable answers to the development of environmentally friendly soil stabilizer and the profitability of industrial by-products.
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Acknowledgments
The experimental work presented in this paper was carried out at the Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, Southeast University, in the academic year of 2013 and 2014 when the first author was a Ph.D. candidate there. The first author would like to thank Dr. Yu-Ling Yang at Bucknell University for her assistance in laboratory testing and a technical writing check of the paper. The funding provided by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (CUG170636, CUGL170807) is appreciated.
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 30 • Issue 11 • November 2018
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©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Sep 17, 2017
Accepted: May 3, 2018
Published online: Aug 6, 2018
Published in print: Nov 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jan 6, 2019
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