Effect of Nano Silica on Geotechnical Properties of Clayey Soil

As the demand for land development is increasing, the soil improvement techniques are generally used to convert land on which construction is difficult. Structures constructed on clayey soils encounter many engineering problems such as bearing capacity settlement. Stabilization techniques are adopted to enhance the soil behavior and performance. Stabilization using many chemical additives such as cement, lime, bitumen and fly ash has been practice to improve soil properties for many years, Nano-chemicals are nanotechnology based products which can provide solutions to moisture and bonding issues for pavements construction. Addition of Nano-particles as an external factor to soil will result in soil manipulation at atomic or molecular level and it influences the strength, permeability indices and resistance properties of soil. Nanotechnology is a reformed mode which can address the rising concern of poor quality roads. There are various types of Nano materials such as Nano silica (SiO2), Nano Titanium oxide (TiO2) etc. are available. The Nano silica is mixed with soil samples (CI) in varying proportions of (0.0 %, 0.25 %, 0.50 %, 0.75 % and 1.0 %) to study the geotechnical properties of soil. The results showed that UCS and CBR characteristics of soils get increases with increasing the percentages upto 0.75 % of Nano SiO2 and afterwards shows a gradual decrease.