Critical review of innovative soil road stabilization techniques

Abstract

New roads are vital socio-economic pathways to a better quality of life for the thirty-five per cent of the Malaysian living in rural areas. However, building of roads in rural areas is always hindered by geographic limitation and often can be costly and energy inefficient. Hence it causes more adverse impact on the environment. Roadways designed for low-volume traffic are constructed of local soils containing high percentages of fines and high indices of plasticity. These soils may not have characteristics appropriate for use in soil road construction, but can often be upgraded with soil stabilization technology to successfully recondition and strengthen existing road base and sub-base materials for extended life and heavier traffic duty. In this paper, an attempt is made to bring in together soil road stabilization technologies for the extremes of dry and wet condition and discuss their positive impacts so as to convince the field engineers to adopt such technologies effectively.