Strengthening of Soft Marine Clay Using Bioencapsulation |
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| Authors: | V Ivanov J Chu V Stabnikov B Li |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Civil, Construction &2. Environmental Engineering , Iowa State University , Ames , IA , USA vivanov@iastate.edu;4. Environmental Engineering , Iowa State University , Ames , IA , USA;5. Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology , National University of Food Technologies , Kiev , Ukraine;6. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering , Nanyang Technological University , Singapore |
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| Abstract: | Dredged or excavated soft marine clay can be improved by mixing it with cement or lime. However, these treatments are usually expensive. It is shown in this paper that soft marine clay can be strengthened through a bioencapsulation method in which the shear strength of clay aggregates can be substantially increased after the aggregates are treated with urease-producing bacteria, calcium chloride, and urea. We found that the bioencapsulation had increased the unconfined compressive strength of marine clay aggregates with a size of 5 mm from almost zero to more than 2 MPa. The strength of the bioencapsulated clay aggregates decreases with the increase in the size of the aggregate when the size is greater than 5 mm. |
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| Keywords: | biocementation compressive strength encapsulation marine clay |
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