Improving the properties of black cotton soil using Terrazyme as a admixture

Bio-enzyme is a natural, non toxic, non flammable, non-corrosive liquid enzyme formulation fermented from vegetable extracts that improves the engineering qualities of soil, facilitates higher soil compaction densities and increases stability. Enzyme catalyze the reactions between the clay and the organic cat-ions and accelerate the cat-ionic exchange process to reduce adsorbed layer thickness. For other types of chemical stabilization, chemicals are mixed with soil, which is difficult to mix thoroughly, but bio-enzyme is easy to use as it can be mixed with water at optimum moisture content and then it is sprayed over soil and compacted. Recently many Bio-enzymes have emerged as cost effective stabilizers for soil stabilization. One such bio-enzyme, Terrazyme, has been used in the present work to study its effect on the CBR value of the Black Cotton soil. The tests conducted in this project are specific gravity, plastic limit, liquid limit, CBR and standard proctor test. In this project, local soil was mixed with Terrazyme with different dosages i.e. 0.25 ml per 100 ml of water, 0.50 ml per 100 ml of water, 0.75 ml per 100 ml of water, and 1 ml per 100 ml of water was mixed subjected to various tests as mentioned. All the testing programs have given optimum value at 0.5 ml terrazyme per 100ml of water. The pavement thickness values reduced by improving the sub grade strength (CBR value).The cost analysis done for this project by using CBR values of the experiments with the reference of pavement design catalogue MORD specification table. The pavement construction value is reduced 30% of the total cost with the help of my laboratory testing results.