A Comparative Analysis of Sand and Stone Dust for Extensive Soil Stabilization

In geotechnical engineering, expansive soils present major difficulties because of their propensity to expand and contract in response to changes in moisture content, which frequently results in structural damage. Because of their insufficient strength and volume change behavior, traditional stabilizing procedures are not always effective. The usefulness of granular columns made of sand and stone dust in enhancing the expansive soil's shear strength properties is examined in this work. Although granular column approaches have been explored in the past, less focus has been placed on how well stone dust and sand columns with different geometries perform in comparison, especially in small-scale laboratory settings. The research involved 19 batches of soil samples, including a control sample and six batches each of sand and stone dust columns with diameters of 16 mm, 19 mm, and 25 mm, and penetration depths of 60 mm, 80 mm, and 100 mm. The mechanical performance of the treated soils was assessed using the unconfined compression strength (UCS) test. The findings showed that, depending on the diameter and penetration depth (according to replacement and penetration ratios of 0.6, 0.8, and 1.0), sand columns improved the shear strength of expansive soil by 25% to 76%, while stone dust columns showed an improvement of 30% to 88%. The mechanical behavior of expansive soils treated with alternative sustainable materials, such as stone dust, is better understood thanks to this study, which provides an economical and sustainable ground improvement solution. This study adds to the body of knowledge on stabilizing troublesome soils by systematically comparing the performance of sand and stone dust columns under various geometric configurations.