A Review of Properties and Behavior of Sand-Clay Mixtures

The properties and engineering behavior of sand-clay mixtures has been the greatest concern among civil and geotechnical engineers in field of practice. The reason has been that, it is an important factor that should be put first because of the important properties of the mixture in the construction site. However, Sand-clay mixtures were not commonly found in its required proportion in nature and therefore rarely available for civil engineering projects unless by improvise method through a geotechnical engineer. The mixtures are prepared through the blending of clay and sand materials together with the required proportions by a geotechnical engineer. In this review, the general properties of the mixtures were discussed. Also the different categories of sands and clay materials available in the construction industries were itemized including their man-made/processed sources. The techniques applied in the preparation of different percentages of sand and clay in the mixtures was considered including the Sand gradation, chemical composition of the mixtures, clay mineralogy, compaction behavior, the CBR, effect of volume change and sand range on the volume change behavior. Finally their transitional behaviors as well as its application were looked into in order to enhance the full understanding of the properties with much emphasis on the engineering behavior of the mixture under discussion.