Improvement of Sabkha Soils Using Cement and Marble Powder

Sabkha soils (or saline soils) are soft or loose soils and highly compressible. This paper investigates the potential of utilizing ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and marble powder (MP) to develop the properties of sabkha soils using traditional soil mixing. The selection of MP is based on the search for a new waste material, which can be employed to replace cement. The binder used consisted of OPC-MP mixtures with OPC/MP ratios of 100/0, 90/10, 70/30, 50/50, 30/70 and 0/100. Unconfined compressive strength together with durability tests was conducted on the treated sabkha. The outcome indicated that the sabkha soil mixed with a binder that consisted of 70% OPC and 30% MP gave the highest unconfined compressive strength of 5.26 MPa and was durable with small loss of weight of about 2.09% after 12 cycles of wetting and drying. The mechanism of the stabilization was explained by the results of scanning electron microscope analysis.