PSI - Issue 70

Vinod Kumar et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 70 (2025) 303–310

305

2.1. Material used The study used three materials: local soil (LS), brick dust, and cement. Soil used in this study was obtained from the Vijay Chhapra, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, which is located at a distance of 2 km from the Budhi Ganda River. The soil was obtained from a depth of 1.5 m to avoid the top vegetation and taken to the lab. In the laboratory, the soil was placed in the oven to get an oven-dry sample. After this, the soil's specific gravity, grain size distribution, and plasticity characteristics were evaluated. The properties of the material are presented in Table 1. The specific gravity of soil was obtained as 2.71. The plasticity index of the soil was about 18 %. The grain size distribution ofthe soil is presented in Fig. 1. It shows that the soil is fine-grained. Based upon the Atterberg limits and grain size distribution, the soil can be classified as ‗CL‘, i.e., claywithlow plasticityas per USCS classification.

Table1.Propertiesoflocalsoilusedinthe presentstudy Properties

Values

Specific Gravity, G Liquid limit (%) Plastic limit (%)

2.71

38 24

MDD (g/cc)

1.69

OMC(%)

20.25

0 20 40 60 80 100

% finer

0.001

0.01

0.1

1

Diameter(mm)

Fig. 1. Grain size distribution of distribution of the soil used in this study.

In the present study, brick dust (BD) was obtained from the Brick manufacturing unit in Dumari, Muzaffarpur. The specific gravity of BD was found to be 2.36. The particles ofbrick dust were found in the range of sand size. The coefficient of uniformity (Cu) and curvature (Cc) for brick dust were 0.26. Based on the grain size, BD was classified as ‗SP‘, i.e., poorly graded sand as per USCS classification. The cement used at present was obtained from the locally available market. Cement used in this study was Portland Pozzolanic Cement (PPC). The specific gravity of cement was found to be 3.17. The initial setting time was found to be 30 minutes, and the final setting time was found to be about 10 hours. 2.2. Experimental details To evaluate the performance of the cement on the mix of LS and BD, the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test was considered. Different tests were conducted to evaluate the strength behavior of a mix prepared with soil, brick dust, and cement. The details of the other series of tests are presented in Table 2. A1 series of tests were conducted on the soil alone. A2 series of tests was conducted on the soil mixed with cement. The cement content (CC) and curing period (CP) were varied in this series. CC was 2-4%, while CP was 7 days to 28 days. A3 series of tests were conducted on the soil mixed with brick dust. These test brick dust content (BDC) varied from 5%-50%. A4 tests were conducted on the soil mixed with cement and BD. BDC and CP were considered variable parameters for tests in this series. CC for this series of tests was kept at 6%, considering the optimum content obtained from the