Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang Dhenkanal-759146

Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang
Dhenkanal-759146

modification of soil properties by using redmud and to find its suitability as civil engineering material
Under the guidance of:-

Dr. Maheswar Maharana
Professer,
Department of Civil Engineering



Submitted by :-

LIPIREKHA TRIPATHY(1101105044)
SATYABRAT PATTNAYAK(1101105055)
SIDHARTH SAHOO(1101105058)


Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang
Dhenkanal-759146


Acknowledgement
We would like to articulate my deep gratitude to my project guide Dr.(prof) Maheswar Maharana ,who has been my motivation for carrying out the project. His constant inspiration and effort made this project work a great success. I am thankful to him for his contribution in completing this project work. An assemblage of this nature could never have been attempted without reference to end inspiration from the works of others whose details are mentioned in different sections. Lastly, I’d like to thank my group mates who have been providing timely help in carrying out all the work associated with this project.

DATE:

PLACE:

LIPIREKHA TRIPATHY

SATYABRATA PATTNAYAK

SIDHARTH SAHOO

Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang
Dhenkanal-759146


Certificate

This is to certify that the project report entitled was carried out by , bearing registration number 1101105055, under my guidance for the partial fulfillment for the award of Bachelors’ Degree in Civil Engineering, under Biju Pattnaik University of Technology for the Academic session 2014-15. This report has been checked and found out to be satisfactory.

DATE:

SIGNATURE OF THE GUIDE

Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang
Dhenkanal-759146


Certificate of Approval

This is to certify that we have examined this dissertation report entitled “” and hereby accord our approval of it is as a thesis work carried out and presented in a manner required for its acceptance in fulfillment of minor project work for the degree of B.Tech (Civil Engineering) to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Technology, Sarang for which it has been submitted. This approval doesn’t endorse of or accepted any statement made, opinion expressed or conclusion drawn as recorded in this dissertation for the purpose for which it has been submitted.

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PLACE


Contents

	Acknowledgement
	Certificate
	Certificate of Approval
	List of Tables
	List of Figures
	Abstract
Chapter 1	INTRODUCTION
	General Objective
Chapter 2	LITERATURE REVIEW
	2.1 Introduction
	2.2 Review of Literature
Chapter 3	METHODOLOGY
Chapter 4	RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
	4.1 Comparison of test results
	4.2 Discussion
Chapter 5	FUTURE WORK
Chapter 6	REFERENCES

LIST OF TABLES

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LIST OF FIGURES

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ABSTRACT

One of the major challenges before the processing and manufacturing industries is disposal of the residual waste products. Red mud is one of the major waste product of any aluminium imdustry. The red mud sample are acquired from NALCO, damanjodi where they are disposed off using Thick Slurry Disposal System, which enables quick consolidation of the slurry once disposed at the red mud pond sites. The project work focuses on the determination of geotechnical properties of red mud and the use of it for the modification of properties of black cotton soil.

The red mud and black cotton soils are characterized and analyzed for the various geotechnical properties. The various experimental works include density test using density bottle,Standard Procter test to determine the maximum dry density and optimum moisture content using OMC and MDT results,Direct Shear test and Triaxial tests of samples were carried out to obtain the shear strength parameters, C and ᵩ.

After characterization of the red mud and black cotton samples for their individual geotechnical parameters, the samples were mixed in various proportions to get a mix having optimum characteristics. The samples were mixed in the proportions of 95-5%,90-10%,85-15%,80-20% of black cotton soil and red mud respectively. All the above experiments were carried out on each mix to obtain the optimum mix. The results of the experiments are all compiled in graphical form to observe the trends in various parameters .

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INTRODUCTION CHAPTER-1

1. 
   General
   

RED MUD:
The requirements for leading a proficient life is challenging for the rapid development of industries and they partially fulfil their tasks since many factors are not overcome by them successfully and one of that is safe disposal and utilization of waste generating at the end.
The waste of alluminium industry known as red mud or bauxite residue is discharged when alumina is coming out from bauxite. During the most feasible Bayer process alumina is extracted from bauxite at elevated temperature and pressure with the presence of sodium hydroxide. Red mud generation is depending upon the type of bauxite used in industry. About 1.2-1.4 tons of red mud is generated per each ton of alumina produced. Each year, more or less 75 million tonnes of red mud is produced worldwide. The iron compounds present in it confers the red colour to it and hence it is called red mud.

The problem with the red mud is that it is toxic by nature. The chemical analysis conducted on red mud reveal that it contains silica, aluminium, iron, calcium, titanium, as well as an array of minor constituents, namely: Na, K, Cr, V, Ni, Ba, Cu, Mn, Pb, Zn etc, because of the harmful chemical composition present in it but the major problem of red mud is it is caustic in nature as the alkalinity is very high. The pH value of red mud is varies from 10.5 to 13. This waste is usually managed by discharge into engineered or natural impoundment reservoirs, with subsequent dewatering by gravity-driven consolidation and sometimes followed by capping for closure. Due to the alkaline nature it neither is used for construction material nor for vegetation

BLACK COTTON SOIL:

 Black cotton soil (in Australia, sometimes 'vertosol') is a soil in which there is a high content of expansive known as montmorillonite that forms deep cracks in drier seasons or years. Alternate shrinking and swelling causes self-mulching, where the soil material consistently mixes itself, causing vertisols to have an extremely deep .Vertisols typically form from highly basic rocks, such as basalt, in climates that are seasonally humid or subject to erratic droughtsand floods, or to impeded drainage. Depending on the parent material and the climate, they can range from grey or red to the more familiar deep black

India has large tracks of expansive soil known as Black Cotton soil (BC soil), covering an area of 0.8 million square kilometre, which is about 20% of total land area. The major areas of their occurrence are states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, southern parts of Uttar Pradesh, eastern parts of Madhya Pradesh, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. This type of soil is available up to a depth of 3.7 meters on an average in the above parts of India. Expansive soils occurring above water table undergo volumetric changes with change in moisture content. Increase in water content causes the swelling of the soils and loss of strength and decrease in moisture content brings about soil shrinkage. Swelling and shrinkage of expansive soil cause differential settlements resulting in severe damage to the foundations, buildings, roads, retaining structures, canal linings, etc. The construction of foundation for structure on black cotton soils poses a challenge to the civil engineers.

1.2 OBJECTIVE

The objective of this work can be summarized as follows :-

→Modification of soil properties by using redmud and to find out its suitability as

civil engineering material

→The tests are to be carried out to evaluate the geotechnical properties of black cotton soil, red mud individually and also in combination based on certain ratio
→After having determined the MDD and OMC, direct shear test,uncomfined compression teses has to be carried out.
→ The best mixing ratio has to be determined according to their properties

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Aluminum industries are producing huge quantity of industrial waste known as red mud. Globally there are approximately 70 million tones of red mud being produced every year with less than half of this is used. Storage of this unutilized red mud takes vast tract so f usable land. Highly alkaline red mud (pH ranges from 10.5 to 13) is typically deposited as slurries with 15 to 40% of solids. The red mud ponds are situated above the normal ground level. This also pollutes the environment in terms of water and land contamination. So in order to avoid these difficulties there is a need to characterize the red mud to be used as an alternate embankment and sub grade material. This paper presents part of the study related to geotechnical characterization of red mud as an engineering material and also to study effect of red mud on the properties of black cotton soil in order to find the optimum mix. This study will help theengineers, planners to use red mud as an alternate material particularly for difficult soil in borrows area or at least to avoid the environmental degradation.

2.2EXPERIMENTS ON GEOTECHNICAL PROPERTIES OF RED MUD

Studies pertaining to geotechnical characterization of red mud are limited and are presented as follows

Miners (1973) observed that red mud consists of sand and silt size particles with clay size up to 20-30%, with complete absence of quartz minerals and classified coarse grained fraction as red sand and fine grained fraction as red mud.
Vogt (1974) described in situ undrained shear strengths are typically very high compared to uncemented, clayey soils at equivalent liquidity indices. The sensitivities vary from 5 to 15 with very high friction angles (φ) of 38-420 are also found for red mud.
Parekh and Goldberger (1976) observed that red mud is highly alkaline and its mineral components are generally hematite, goethite, gibbsite, calcite, sodalite.
Somogyi and Gray (1977) described red mud is of highly alkaline, having 20-30% clay sized particles, with the majority of particles in the silt range. One-dimensional compression tests indicate values for Cc ranging from 0.27 to 0.39 permeability k from 2 to 20x10-7cm/s and Cv = 3 – 50 x 103 cm2/s.
Vick (1981) observed that red mud is of low plasticity with liquid limit (LL) of 45% and plasticity index (PI) of 10% with relatively high specific gravity (GS) of 2.8-3.3. Due to its lack of clay mineralogy, these wastes show many geotechnical properties similar to clayey tailings found in other mineral processing [e.g., mineral sands, gold, etc].
Li (1998) found that red mud is highly alkaline (pH = 11-13) waste material, whose mineral components includes hematite, goethite, gibbsite, calcite, sodality and complex silicates and some red mud have been found to have greater than 50% of the particles less than 2μm. The cation exchange capacities of red mud are comparable with kaolin or illite minerals.
Newson et al. (2006) carried out investigations on physiochemical and mechanical properties of red mud at a site in the United Kingdom. Based on a set of laboratory tests conducted on the red mud, the compression behaviour found to similar to clayey soils, but frictional.
Surabhi jain(2014) presented a paper on ‘Red mud as an construction material by using bioremediation’

Rapid industrialization and faster growth rate are the requirements for leading a proficient life but a holistic approach with environmental consideration are essential for sustainable development. These industries are partially fulfilling their tasks since many factors are not overcome by them successfully and one of that is safe disposal of waste generating at the end.

Red mud is a waste product from the Alumina industry and it creates a lot of health hazards to the ecology, if it is left disposed without necessary precautions, hence safe disposal practices and reuse of the product are one of the solutions. Disposal method entails a huge land area and enormous mass of earth material for construction of embankment. Many countries are disposing red mud waste directly into the ocean due to shortage of land area and scarcity of earth material.

Many researches are still being carried out on the neutralisation of red mud in various ways. This report is one of the parts of utilizing the red mud in a very better and economic manner. In this paper the red mud is used as an alternative construction material after remediation by biological process. This gives a cost effective neutralisation method as well as abundant material which can use in construction

Ravi Sundaram & Sanjay Gupta, presented a paper on ‘constructin of foundation on red mud’

For the expansion of an Aluminium plant in eastern Uttar Pradesh (India), it was required to construct an industrial facility on a slurry pond formed by pumping Red Mud, the waste product of the processing of aluminium ore. Since the Red Mud deposition behaves as asoft clay, ground improvement was done by provision of granular piles / rammed stone columns. The granular piles were load tested to verify the efficacy of the improvement.