Effect of clay mineral types on the strength and microstructure properties of soft clay soils stabilized by epoxy resin

Soft clay soils due to their various geotechnical problems, stabilized with different additives. Traditional additives such as cement and lime will not able to increase the soil strength properties significantly. So, it seems necessary to use new additives for increasing strength parameters of soft clay soils significantly. Among the new additives, epoxy resins have excellent physical and mechanical properties, low shrinkage, excellent resistance to chemicals and corrosive materials, etc. So, in this research, epoxy resin used for stabilization of soft clay soils. For comprehensive study, three clay soil samples with different PI and various clay mineral types were studied. A series of uniaxial tests, SEM and XRD analysis conducted on the samples. The results show that using epoxy resin increases the strength parameters such as UCS, elastic modulus and material toughness about 100 to 500 times which the increase was dependent on the type of clay minerals type in the soil. Also, In addition to water conservation, the best efficiency in the weakest and most sensitive soils is the prominent results of stabilization by epoxy resin which can be used in different climatic zones, especially in hot and dry and equatorial climate which will be faced with water scarcity.