Chemical stabilization of Al-Qurrayyah Eastern Saudi Sabkha soil

Abstract

Despite the extensive distribution of sabkha soil in many countries in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle East, particularly along the coastal areas, a review of the published literature indicates that these types of soil have received little attention from the geotechnical community to improve their inferior properties. There exist some "pilot" studies, however, they can not be generalized to all sabkhas due to the heterogeneous nature of these soils.

In this research program, a "selected" sabkha soil from Al-Qurayyah, eastern Saudi Arabia, was researched for: (i) characterization, (ii) preliminary stabilization using chemical additives, namely cement and lime, and (iii) detailed stabilization program using one of the stabilizers only. The test results indicated that lime did not bring about significant improvement and therefore was excluded in the detailed stabilization of Al-Qurayyah sabkha. However, the 7