Durability Of Gypsum Soil Treated By Using Polyurethane Polymer

Abstract

Gypseous soils represented one of the most complex salty soils that faced the geotechnical engineers. Structures that built on gypsum soil will undergo unexpected distortions that will eventually contribute to catastrophic failure. The purpose of this article is to understand the durability of gypsum soil against wetting drying cycles after improvement with polyurethane polymer especially investigate the effect of the wetting-drying cycle on collapsibility. The soil was brought from Sawa lake in AL-Muthanna Governorate in Iraq, with gypsum content 65.5%,  A set of Odometer tests were performed to determine the collapsibility potential (CP) for treated and untreated gypsum soil.  The result shows that adding a different percentage of polyurethane polymer (PP) gave a significant improvement in collapse potential (CP) and durability against wetting and drying cycles with different curing times. Whereas reduction in (CP) for the three percentages (3%, 6%, 10%) of polyurethane polymer was (53%,82%,93.2%) respectively after the specimens subjected to one cycle, while the three percentages (3%, 6%, 10%) of polyurethane polymer gave about (85%, 87%,94.6%) reduction in (CP) respectively after the specimens subjected to four cycles. the result showed that polyurethane can be used successfully as a chemical additive to stabilize the mechanical characteristic of gypseous soil with a high percentage of gypsum content.