Investigating erosional behaviour of chemically stabilised erodible soils

ABSTRACT: Chemical stabilisation is a popular technique to improve the erosion resistance of the soils. In this study, two chemical stabilisers, namely lignosulfonate and general purpose Portland cement were tested on two different soils, a silty sand and a dispersive clay. A series of erosion tests were performed to study the effectiveness of the stabilisation in increasing the erosion resistance. Results showed that the increase in the critical shear stress of the silty sand with only 0.6 % lignosulfonate treatment was equivalent to that with around 2.5 % cement treatment. However, the stabilisation of the dispersive clay with 0.6 % cement was more effective than 0.6 % lignosulfonate. The findings of this research also indicated that the coefficient of soil erosion decreased as a power function of the critical shear stress