The Efficiency of Waste Marble Powder in the Stabilization of Fine-Grained Soils in Terms of Volume Changes

The recycling of waste marble powder (MP) for soil stabilization is still under research for geotechnical engineers, with the aim of improving poor soil properties. This paper investigated the effect of calcitic marble powder (CMP) and dolomitic marble powder (DMP) on the geotechnical properties of fine-grained soils. Consistency limits, linear shrinkage, expansion index, and one-dimensional consolidation tests were performed on non-stabilized and stabilized samples with 5, 10, 20, 30, and 50% of waste CMP and DMP to determine the efficiency of using waste marble powders in soil stabilization. The marble powder ratio which gave the best results was determined as 50% for both MH samples and CH samples. The laboratory test results showed that the waste marble powders were effective in soil stabilization by reducing the plasticity index from 49 to 26 for the CH samples and from 21 to 9 for the MH sample, expansion index from 45 to 20 for the CH sample and from 32 to 7 for the MH sample, swelling index from 0.0030 to 0.0012 for the MH sample, compression index from 0.013 to 0.010 for the MH sample, and linear shrinkage from 16.2 to 10.5 for the CH sample. The waste MP content and fine-grained soil type need to be taken into consideration in soil stabilization based on volume change.