Soil Stabilization by Alkali Activated Fly Ash: A Review

The construction industry has attained new heights because of research work and its applications. Not only development in concrete technology but also importance of soil has been realised and has greater impacts in construction industry. As soil is the ultimate load bearer so it’s stability is a necessity and hence many efforts have been done for its stabilization. The performance of any structure depends upon the behavior of underlying soil mass and on the bearing capacity of soil. Expansive soil is catastrophic to construction as it swells and shrinks frequently and thereby it needs stabilization with different materials. Soil stabilization with various combinations of chemical, physical and biological methods has been employed to improve soil properties to make it adequate for intended engineering purpose. There is a huge generation of fly ash by thermal power plants which contribute to about 57% of power generation in India. There have been efforts to stabilize expansive soil using fly ash which is activated by alkali as it serves the dual purpose of sustainable development and fly ash disposal issues as fly ash poses hazardous threat to environment. Literature survey on this subject shows the importance of investigations on fly ash and alkali activated fly ash to stabilize expansive soil. It also shows variation in properties of expansive soil after its stabilization by fly ash and alkali activated fly ash. It also contains various additives to curb expansive behavior of soil by different combinations. This overall leads to sustainability in construction industry. This paper reviews behavior of Expansive Soil after stabilization with alkali activated fly ash on the basis of available literature..