Volume change of expansive soils is a challenging issue, which affects various engineering structures all over the world. Consequently, we need environmentally-friendly and cost-effective soil stabilizers to address the challenges related to expansive soils. The utilization of natural fibers allows for the reduction in environmental impact since they are renewable and biodegradable raw materials. Moreover, the current article presents an experimental approach to study the effect of natural fibers on the mechanical behavior of expansive soils. Various experimental tests—such as Atterberg limits, standard compaction, direct shear, swelling potential, and swelling pressure—were conducted on control and treated soil samples using different percentages of fibers. The results of measurements of the physico-mechanical properties after reinforcement of the soil with 1%, 5%, and 10% of natural fibers indicate that the mechanical behavior of expansive soils is greatly influenced by the addition of natural fibers. To conclude, 86% reduction was observed in the swelling coefficient of treated soil. Future research can be done to check the durability of the current practice in detail.

This research paper depicts the experimental investigation of the impact of stone dust as an admixture on the geotechnical characteristics of expansive soils that shrink and swell during the wet and dry seasons. As a result, expansive soil causes the differential settlement of structures. Thus the stabilization of expansive soil is important to overcome potential pavement failure. For this purpose research studies were carried out on the reuse of stone industry wastage for the improvement of expansive soil. Also, this research is beneficial to utilize the stone dust waste for strengthening the soil and making the environment pollution-free. Stone dust was used to stabilize the geotechnical characteristics of the weak soil such as shear strength, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), index properties, maximum dry density (MDD), optimum moisture content (OMC), and California bearing ratio (CBR). The percentages of stone dust employed in the studies were 0%, 7%, 14%, 21%, and 28% by dry weight of soil, which substantially reduced the soil's swelling properties. The results show significant improvements in the desirable geotechnical characteristics of the expansive soil. The optimal quantity of stone dust was concluded based on the findings for treating the subgrade of weaker expansive soil.

The most frequent parameter used to quantify seismic site response in ground motion models is time-averaged shear wave velocity in the top 30 m of a site (Vs30), used by many engineering design codes and most recently by published empirical-scaling equations to estimate the amplitudes of strong ground motion. The current study explores the potential comparison of the results from the predictive equations and formula recommendations by the international building code. A total of 53 synthetic and real data models with distinct types of vs. profile were used to determine the theoretical dispersion curves and avoid forward and inverse modeling. In the prediction equation, VR36 and VR40 were employed to estimate Vs30. Furthermore, using VR40, based on the 53 different models, shows a good agreement with Vs30. The thickness of the first layer substantially affects the correlation. The findings calculated by the correlation are not in the acceptable zone for layer thicknesses of 10 < H < 20 m and thin layers at shallow depths with lower shear wave velocity.

Civil engineering structures such as buildings, highways, dams, canals and retaining structures, etc. suffer large-scale damage due volume change of expansive soils. To control the damage and to stabilize such expansive soils are some key challenges in the field of geotechnical engineering. The use of fuels as a soil stabilizer is one of the sustainable, environmental friendly and economical technique to improve the geotechnical properties of expansive soil. The fuels used in this study are crude oil and toluene. Free-swell tests and oedometric tests were carried out to investigate the effectiveness of the fuel content in controlling volume change and increasing soil strength of swelling clay. Moreover, it is observed that the stabilization process mainly involves hydration, cation exchange, flocculation and pozzolanic reactions. These insoluble or low water solubility stabilizers have demonstrated excellent potential for stabilizing low grade materials with swelling properties to support low and high volume structures and roads, and to improve their strength.