EFFECT OF SUGAR CANE BAGASSE ASH ON THE PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SUBGRADE LAYER

Abstract

In the pavement, the subgrade layer must have enough strength in order to withstand and support the other layers. The availability of waste materials from industry and agriculture and the need to employ the use of this material in the field of roadworks instead of traditional stabilizing agents has encouraged an investigation into stabilizing the soil by sugar cane bagasse Ash (SCBA). Sugar cane bagasse Ash has beneficial engineering purposes of using it as a stabilizer material. The work of this paper is aimed to evaluate the potential benefits of bagasse ash, which is considered pozzolana material, as a stabilizer material for the subgrade layers. The laboratory work involved soil stabilized with varying percentages of sugar cane bagasse ash ) 3%, 5%, 7%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30%( by dry weight of the soil individually. The used soil shows that it belongs to A-7-6 class of soil in the AASHTO soil classification system and the soil under this class is generally of poor engineering use. Analysis of the results shows that slight improvement in the geotechnical properties of bagasse ash stabilized soil, where increasing the addition of bagasse ash reduces plastic limit (P.L), liquid limit (L.L), specific gravity (Gs), and maximum dry density (MDD) values while increasing the optimum moisture content (OMC) value for soil stabilized by bagasse ash. The results of conducted tests show that initially OMC of soil is (21.9%) and for the addition of bagasse ash up to (30%) it becomes (34.52%) ...