Stabilization of Soft Clay by a Low-Calcium Fly Ash Geopolymer
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 35, Issue 11
Abstract
Geopolymers are widely considered be low-carbon and cost-effective binders and are used for the stabilization of soft soils in recent years. The current study investigated the stabilization efficacy of low-calcium fly ash (FA) geopolymer for soft clay. The influence of FA content, initial water content, and curing time on stabilization efficacy was investigated. A range of laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the strength and permeability performance of the geopolymer-stabilized clay, including unconfined compressive strength (UCS), falling head permeability, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The results indicated that the mechanical performance of the soft clay at high water content was greatly improved by low-calcium FA geopolymer, exhibiting obvious characteristics of continuous long-term strength development and more ductility compared with cemented clay. A linear empirical relationship was proposed to overcome the shortcomings of the traditional logarithmic function for predicting the long-term strength evolution of low-calcium FA geopolymer–stabilized clay. The UCS of the mixtures increased rapidly with increasing FA content from 16% to 30% and from 25% to 30% for clay water content at liquid limit (LL) and 1.4 LL, respectively. Thirty percent FA content is needed for stabilizing soft clay at 1.0 LL by the deep soil mixing (DSM) method but is obviously not enough at higher initial water content. The major reduction in permeability of the geopolymer-stabilized clay occurred within 28 days of curing while the FA content reached 12%. Despite the increase in curing time up to 90 days and the increase in FA content to 30%, permeability decreased quite slowly. Comparing with the cemented clay, the stabilized clay showed better hydraulic performance but slightly lower permeability.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LY22D020001). Support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41772293 and 41972273), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2021M702372), and the Historical and Cultural City Research Center (Grant No. 13012001009027) are also appreciated.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 35 • Issue 11 • November 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 13, 2022
Accepted: Apr 6, 2023
Published online: Aug 25, 2023
Published in print: Nov 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Jan 25, 2024
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