Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Performance Evaluation of Contaminated Cohesive Soils

Abstract

Akshay Chaudhary *

In recent years, due to exponential population growth and industrial progress, much of the air, water and land have become contaminated due to open dumps of municipal chemical and industrial wastes and effluents. All types of contamination have direct or indirect effects on ground soil properties. The oil, gas and petrochemical industry are considered as a potential source having complex and concentrated influence on the soil environment. The economic prosperity of a country is judged by its industrial capacity. Therefore, with more industries using more and more petroleum hydrocarbons as a fuel, the problems of soil pollution due to influence of industrial waste containing oils and greases has also increased. An analysis of the effects of the contaminated soil has to be carried out before any recommendation can be made for soil regarding its use in various construction activities. As the clays or colloids have so much surface area and are negatively charged at their outer particle perimeters, can attract and swell too many hundred times their original particle size with contaminants. Clayey soils also form a barrier and can trap hydrocarbons contaminants. The study was carried out by using engine oil as contaminant. The two types of clay samples (Natural clay and China clay + bentonite) with different plasticity were contaminated with different concentrations of engine oil ranging from 3% to 9% and the engineering properties of the soil samples were evaluated and compared.