Journal of Transportation Research

Journal of Transportation Research

Experimental Study on the Mechanical Behavior of Polymer Resin Stabilized Sand under Saline Conditions for Pavement Applications

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Amirali Rafiei 1
Seyed Mohammad Hossein Hosseini Manesh, 2
Mohammad Mehdi Khabiri 3
1 M.Sc., Student, Department of Civil Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.
2 M.Sc., Student, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
3 Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.
10.22034/tri.2025.560941.3404
Abstract
The influence of salt and salinity on polymer resin performance in quicksand stabilization is a critical area of research in geotechnical engineering, particularly for pavement applications. Quicksand, characterized by its particle size distribution between 0.1 mm and 0.5 mm and its susceptibility to liquefaction, presents significant stabilization challenges. This study, using unconfined compressive strength tests (in accordance with ASTM D2166), experimentally investigates the effects of different salt concentrations (0%, 10%, and 20%) on quicksand stabilized with varying percentages of acrylic resin (5%, 7.5%, and 10%). Results indicate that increasing salinity levels have an inverse and detrimental relationship with the mechanical properties of the stabilized samples. In a salt-free environment (0%), increasing the polymer from 5% to 10% significantly raised the compressive strength from 3.16 MPa to 6.90 MPa. Conversely, in a 20% salt environment, the compressive strength decreased considerably, reaching 2.04 MPa at a 5% polymer concentration. The elastic modulus (E50) also demonstrated a similar pattern; increasing the polymer percentage at any constant salinity level led to increased stiffness (e.g., at 0% salt, from 98.05 MPa to 236.86 MPa), but increasing the salt concentration at a constant polymer percentage caused a noticeable drop in stiffness. Failure energy also increased with more polymer in the salt-free environment (from 0.04420 to 0.09408), whereas at 20% salt concentration, the energy values decreased, reaching 0.04188 at 5% polymer. Furthermore, statistical modeling using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) confirmed high prediction accuracy with a coefficient of determination of 99% (R2 ≈ 0.99).
Keywords
Pavement
Quicksand stabilization
Salinity Effects
Polymer resin
Soil improvement
Subjects
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