Sustainable utilization of powdered glass to improve the mechanical behavior of fat clay

Civil engineering infrastructure like roads, bridges, railway tracks, and building structures constructed on fat clay becomes suspicious due to adverse change in the behavior of such soil on interaction with water. To solve such problems especially in underdeveloped countries, application of industrial waste like glass is associated with technical, financial, and environmental benefits. Emphasis of current study is to determine the consequences of powdered glass (GC) on mechanical behavior of fat clay. A fat clayey sample was collected from location of Nandipur, and glass was taken from local glass market in powdered form. Samples were remolded at optimum moisture content and maximum dry unit weight by mixing GC up to 14%. Soil classification tests, modified compaction tests, unconfined compression tests, one-dimensional consolidation tests, California bearing ratio (CBR) tests, and scanning electron microscope were performed. With increasing GC, the consistency limits, compression characteristics, swell characteristics, and optimum moisture content decreased while maximum dry unit weight, yield stress, CBR, and unconfined compression strength increased. Influence of GC is also observed on microstructure of treated clay. After 12% GC, aforementioned geotechnical characteristics behave inversely for selected clay. The optimum GC-value for the tested clay is about 12%, however, this value may vary from clay to clay.