EFFECT OF CATIONIC BITUMEN EMULSION ON SHEAR STRENGTH PARAMETERS OF SOIL

Simarpreet Singh Batra, Jashandeep Singh Arora

Abstract: Soil is considered to be most basic construction material that has good shear strength due to the cohesion and internal friction among the soil solid particles. But due to much heavy loads coming from bridges, buildings etc. even soils having good shear strength can fail resulting in subsequent failure of the structures due to differential settlement. Many attempts have been made by numerous scholars in the history to increase the strength of soil by different methods including addition of lime, cement etc. Recent research is being carried to use non-traditional materials like Bitumen Emulsions etc. for improving the properties of soil. Bitumen Emulsions are usually dispersions of minute droplets of bitumen in water i.e. oil in water emulsions and are used to improve the cohesive strength of granular, low cohesion, low plasticity materials. They can also improve the integrity of road base, sub-base or sub-grade materials by resisting the damage caused by water. In this paper, the Direct Shear Test was conducted on soil with varying amount of Cationic Bitumen Emulsion (0%, 2%, 5%, 6% and 7%) to study the effect on Shear Strength parameters of the soil. The maximum shear strength of the soil was observed at 6% Bitumen Emulsion from the laboratory tests performed on the soil i.e. approximately 65% more shear strength by increasing Angle of Internal Friction but reduced Cohesionthan the soil without any Emulsion.

Keywords: Bitumen Emulsion, Cationic, Shear Strength, Direct Shear Test, Soil Stabilization

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2016.0509026