Dead Sea Water as a Soil Improvement Agent   Bassam Z. Mahasneh Department of Civil Engineering, Mu’tah University, Jordan
			ABSTRACT

The study reported in this paper is concerned with using water from Dead Sea as a soil stabilization agent. Three materials, a clay soil, a white fine aggregate, and the base course material have been studied. Each material has been mixed with both tap water and Dead Sea water separately and the resulting soil properties have been measured for comparison. The plasticity index has decreased from 13 using tap water to 6 using Dead Sea water for the clay soil, from 10 using tap water to 3 using Dead Sea water for white fine aggregate, and from 6 using tap water to 1.0 using Dead Sea water for base course. The maximum dry unit weight and the optimum moisture content obtained from the standard and the modified Proctor tests for clay soil was found to decrease by the addition of Dead Sea water, to the extent that the maximum dry unit weight decreased from 20.8 kN/m³ to 17.3 kN/m³ and the optimum moisture content decreased from 22% to 11%. The maximum dry unit weight for white fine aggregate increased from 19.1 kN/m³ to 22.5 kN/m³ and the optimum moisture content decreased from 12% to 7%. For the base course, the maximum dry unit weight increased from 21 kN/m³ to 22.5 kN/m³ and the optimum moisture content decreased from 10% to 7%. The unconfined compressive strength for the three materials using Dead Sea water was noticed and the important improvement was clear in the base course and the white fine aggregate where the unconfined compressive strength increased from 93 kN/m² to 130 kN/m² and 47 kN/m² to 63 kN/m², respectively, while for the clay soil, the unconfined compressive strength increased from 35 kN/m² to 57 kN/m² in comparison with that for tap water.

Keywords: Dead Sea, Soil Improvement, Base course, Clay soil, White fine aggregate, Unconfined Compressive Strength.

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