Investigation Some of the Engineering Properties of Soil in Merawi Town
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Date
2015-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Merawi, Mecha wereda capital Town, which is located 540 km from Addis Ababa in North West direction on the main high way road of Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar and 30 km away from Bahir Dar in the South West direction. It was founded in 1935E.C which situated at latitude 11o24`56.36``N, longitude 37o09`33.03``E and an average elevation of 2010m above sea level.
A lot of civil engineering structures are under construction; however, so far nothing has been done on the investigation of soil with respect to the intended town development plan. There are no previously done researches around Merawi.
The objective of the research is to investigate some of the engineering properties of the soils in Merawi Town, where development has a promising future. Investigations have been made on the properties of the soils in the town for this research. The research is intended to investigate some of the engineering properties of soils in the Town. After visiting the Town, six representative test pit points were selected and from each test pit disturbed and undisturbed samples were taken to perform laboratory tests. As it was observed, the depth of the soil coverage is uniform in each test pit. The number of test pits taken were limited because of that the soil in the entire area of the town is more or less similar.
From reconnaissance survey it has been observed that the Town is covered by red clay soil. After collecting representative disturbed and undisturbed samples from proposed open test pits by direct manual excavation, laboratory tests were carried out including specific gravity, natural moisture content, Atterberg limit, unconfined compression, consolidation, free swell, sieve analysis and hydrometer tests.
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GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING STREAM Page ix
The laboratory test results show that the soil in the Town has clay fraction ranges 63.6% to 91.3% which is fine clay soils. Based on index property test results, the soil under investigation was classified as clay soil using Unified and AASHTO soil classification systems.
The specific gravity of the soil ranges from 2.70 to 2.76. From the Atterberg Limit results the soil is highly plastic clay and the activity grouped as inactive. The soil has free swell between 14.5% and 20% which indicates that the soil is not expansive soil.
The unconfined compressive strength of the soil ranges between 63.7kN/m2 and 117.8kN/m2 and the consistency index of the soil ranges between 50% to 93.7% which indicates that the soil natural consistency is soft to stiff clay soil.
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Geotechnical Engineering