Stabilization of sandy soil contaminated with crude-oil utilizing Portland cement

The issue of soil pollution has lately gotten worse because of the increase in industrial wastes like heavy metals, liquid hydrocarbons, and petroleum hydrocarbons. Oil is one of the most important sources of industrial pollution, which deteriorates large parts of surface areas and water bodies, and oil or its derivatives spill into surface areas or water bodies, either spontaneously or forcibly. Petroleum-polluted soil has an ordinarily adverse impact on its geotechnical features making it inadequate substance for construction projects. Therefore, there is an urgent need to find suitable techniques for improving such polluted soils. This paper is prepared to show two matters: the first deals with a comparison between the natural sandy soil and sandy soil polluted with 11.8% of crude oil, while the second deals with an estimation of the mechanical features of polluted soil after being treated with five different proportions of ordinary Portland cement as stabilizer agents. Many experimental tests have been applied depending on the ASTM standards to evaluate several geotechnical features like the consistency limits, compaction parameters, UCS, and direct shear characteristics. The results showed that the existence of crude-oil in sandy soil minimizes the dry density, moisture content, shear stress, friction angle, and effective cohesion. Otherwise, the utilization of Portland cement in polluted sandy soil increases such mechanical features.