Expansive Soils: Recent Advances in Characterization and Treatment

presented in a clear manner…provides useful laboratory and field results concerning soil shrinking and swelling. Bull Eng Geol Environment, 2007 This book deals with expansive soil fundamentals, problems and solutions. It contains a total of 34 papers with contributions by 52 experts from 22 countries. It is intended for engineers, researchers and graduates students working on expansive soils, soil improvement and foundation engineering. Expansive soils occur in many parts of the world but particularly in arid and semi-arid regions; the case studies presented are mainly concerned with these areas. It would have been useful to have included case studies related to shrink/swell hazards and damage, particularly on the Atlantic edge of Europe, in order to present more of a worldwide overview rather than being almost exclusively devoted to arid and semi-arid areas. The book is presented in a clear manner, with nine well organized sections. The first section (5 papers) is devoted to the identification and classification of expansive soils and is followed by sections 2, 3 and 4 (at total of 13 papers) concerning volume change characteristics as well as classical and advanced techniques for swelling potential assessments and measurements. More advanced results related to shrinkage characterization would have been judicious. Section 5 concerns site characterization, with 3 papers form Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Australia. The 12 papers in section 6, 7 and 8 are devoted to the stabilization of expansive soils using lime, cement or other treatments. Finally, section 9 contains one paper discussing the use of granular pile-anchors – a relatively new foundation technique for expansive soils. In conclusion, this book provides useful laboratory and field results concerning soil shrinking and swelling. It will help geotechnical workers obtain a better knowledge of the shrink/swell processes, hazards and associated remedial measures. Such knowledge is important if geotechnical engineers are to prevent many of the problems which have developed in the past, in areas of expansive soils. Bull Eng Geol Environment, 2007