Why excessive swelling capacity is dangerous for structures?

Soil is a very unique building material and its value changes whenever it is move from one
location to another. If you and the construction manager do not understand and plan on this
value changes you can find your work increasing unexpectedly. In order to understand the
swelling behavior we need to learn the composition of the soil. All soils have three components;
air, water, and solids or soil grains. In construction materials there is a standard unit for soils
and that is the cubic yard. If we think about all the possible locatios for soil on the construction
site there are only three places; the bank, loose, and the compacted cubic yard. The bank is
where the excavation made. Loose is anything that transport soil from one place to another. In
the process of excavating and placing soil on hollow unit the soil are loosen. While compacted is
in which soil has been place in fill area and compacted. The process of excavating soil from its
natural position to excavator will loosen the soil often and more void space in the process. For
example, the 1 bank cubic yard becomes 1.25 loose cubic yard. Why this happen? It is because
in loosing the soil we are increasing the void space, that is how swelling works. excessive
swelling capacity of soil is very dangerous. When minerals in the soil absorb water and get
bigger, it expand up to large amount of percent in volume as they absorb moisture and it can
exert thousand pounds of force on structures. The soil that has swollen during a wet period will
shrink again as the soil dries and repeated cycles of swelling can be particularly damaging to
structures. When Soil swelling capacity becomes excessive it pushes against building beneath
soil surface and cause the foundation cracks. Repeates cyclea can cause aimilar damage to frost
heave, including cracks and buckling in driveways, sidewalks and roads.

To reduce the tendency of soil swelling, installing drainage systems that move moisture
through the soil as quickly as possible and by avoiding landscaping that directs runoff water
towards the problem areas can really help.