Geotechnical Properties of Lateritic Soil Stabilized with Banana Leaves Ash
This paper investigated the geotechnical properties of lateritic soil with banana leaves ash. The natural soil sample was gotten from the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria, and were subjected to preliminary soil tests such as natural moisture content, specific gravity and atterberg limit at its natural state. Engineering tests such as compaction, california bearing ratio and unconfined compressive strength tests were also carried out on the lateritic soil at their natural states and at when the banana leaves ashes were added to the soil at varying proportions of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10% by weight of soil. The result of the strength tests showed that the banana leaves ash enhanced the strength of the lateritic soil. The unsoaked CBR value of the soil at its natural state was 10.42 % and it got to optimum value of 28.10% by addition of 4% banana leaves ash by weight of soil. The unconfined compressive strength improved from 209.18 kN/m2 at natural state to 233.77 kN/m 2 at 4% banana leaves ashes. It was therefore concluded that the banana leaves ash satisfactorily act as cheap stabilizing agents for subgrade purposes.