Journal of Engineering Geology

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The goal of this study was improvement of sandy soil using a combination of polystyrene foam container waste and Portland cement. For this purpose, Babolsar sand was used as the base soil. Strips of disposable polystyrene foam container waste in “chips” of 50 ´ 5 mm and 50 ´ 10 mm were added to the soil at 0.0%, 0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3% by weight along with 3% Portland cement at a relative density of 70%. All samples were cured for 7 days under saturated conditions and then tested using a large-scale direct shear apparatus. The results showed that, in both cemented and uncemented samples, the addition of foam chips increased the cohesion and internal friction angles, which increased the shear strength of the soil. At higher percentages and using larger-sized foam chips, the shear strength increased even more. In uncemented samples, the stiffness did not change with the addition of foam chips, yet the final dilation of the samples decreased. In cemented samples, both the stiffness and softening behavior after the peak strength point decreased. The final dilation of the cemented samples increased at higher foam chip contents and for the larger sized chips. The results of numerical analysis showed that the use of foam chips increased the safety factor of a slope improved in this manner. It also was found that the foam chips with a lower length-to-width ratio had a greater effect on increasing the safety factor of the tested slopes.

Keywords: Soil improvement, Polystyrene foam waste, Cement, Stability.

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