Expansive soil improvement of Glagahagung village, Purwoharjo sub-district, Banyuwangi district, which is chemically stabilized

Abstract

Expansive soil can be easily found at Purwoharjo, a sub-district of Banyuwangi. Swelling and shrinkage behavior of the soil is usually referred to by the local community as a “moving soil” phenomenon. It causes cracks on a number of buildings which is a major issue in that area. Various methods of expansive soil stabilization are available. This work intends to lay comparisons on stabilizations using wood charcoal powder and salt. The stabilizing materials are mixed with the soils under different proportion. Volume weight, index properties, and dry density are parameters to be investigated during the stabilization process. The results show that salt stabilized expansive soil is better than wood charcoal powder. 15% proportion of salt to soils weight increases the density by about 20%. Meanwhile, the stabilized soil is as a result of change to low plasticity silt (ML) from previously high plasticity soil (CH) of the original one.