STABILIZATION OF CLAY SOILS WITH ORGANIC ENZYME FOR ROAD SUBGRADE

Abstract

The subgrade is the foundation of the pavement structure, which directly influences the dimensioning of each of the layers that comprise it. The stabilization seeks to improve its bearing capacity, and thereby reduce costs and thickness of the pavement. The research addresses the stabilization of a silt-clay soil by means of an organic enzyme, which is added 3ml of the additive in a volume of 5 gallons of material, to evaluate the effect of curing time and the density achieved by variation of the applied compaction energy. As a verification of the results, the amount of additive is increased up to 9 ml for the same volume of soil. It was verified that the variation of the curing time did not have a significant influence on the CBR of the stabilized soil, while the applied energy had some influence. The additive produced an increase in the resistance after immersion with respect to the unstabilized soil, although this increase was not sufficient for a road subgrade. The swelling of the soil stabilized by the effect of immersion did decrease appreciably with the days of curing.