Bearing Capacity Characteristics of Sand Columns Stabilized with Recycled Bricks Material In Soft Soils

Abstract

The current endeavor is to achieve enhanced solidity of sand columns relative to the surrounding soil through the utilization of recycled brick and cement, facilitated by the process of sodium silicate stabilization. The experimental program has been partitioned into three distinct components to facilitate the construction of columns. The initial step entails determining the standard mixing proportion for each substance and sodium silicate across three weight percentages of liquid sodium silicate (10%, 15%, and 20%). To investigate the properties of the second material, a mixture of cement and brick is prepared by incorporating sand at different weight ratios, specifically 10%, 20%, 40%, and 60%. Samples were subjected to a laboratory test to determine their unconfined compressive strength. The experimental findings indicated that the cohesiveness of sand can be increased by incorporating 20% cement and 20% sodium silicate into the cement-sand combination. The optimal composition for the brick-sand mixture was found to be 20% brick and 20% sodium silicate. The final phase of the experiment involved the utilization of a laboratory model to assess the efficacy of each mixture on sand columns. During this phase of the laboratory experiments, the model test was conducted on three separate occasions. Initially, the earth was strengthened through the implementation of a solitary column. The second occurrence was further strengthened with the addition of two columns. In the third instance, there were four columns present.  The findings of the study indicate that the soil's improvement ratio was seen to be 163% for a single column, 256% for two columns, and 358% for four columns when the soil was reinforced using sand-cement columns stabilized with sodium silicate. The sand-brick column yielded a single column efficiency of 46%, a two-column efficiency of 144%, and a four-column efficiency of 261%.