Results in Engineering 6 (2020) 100111

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Results in Engineering
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Sulphate attack on cemented-bentonite-coconut coir

Amin Chegenizadeh a, *, Megha Aashish a, Hamid Nikraz a, Mahdi Keramatikerman b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Curtin University of Technology, Kent Street, Bentley, Perth, Western Australia, 6102, Australia
b
Arup Australia, 61-73 Sturt Street, Suncorp Tower, Townsville, QLD, 4810, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study investigates effect of coconut coir (CC) on Portland cement (PC) blended with bentonite against
Oil mechanics magnesium sulphate (MgSO4). The mixtures were bentonite clay and 3, 5 and 7% PC and 2, 4 and 6% CC when
Sulphate attack cured for 7, 14 and 28 days. A total number of 78 UCS tests were conducted on both benchmark and MgSO4
Clay
exposed samples. PC treated samples indicated an enhancement in UCS beneath all circumstances. It was also
Cement
Coconut coir
noted that the addition of 2% CC was the most effective in this research. Also, the results showed that 4 and 6%
coconut coir increment to be over-reinforcement and appears create a poor bonding forces and therefore lower
resistance recorded.

Credit chemical effects, three materials consist of luoropolymer, silicate resin

Amin Chegenizadeh, Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project adminis-
tration. Megha Ashish, Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal anal-
ysis, Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing, Project administration. Hamid Nikraz,
Methodology, Formal analysis, Resources, Data curation, Writing - orig-
inal draft, Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administra-
tion. Mahdi Keramatikerman, Validation, Investigation, Visualization,
Data curation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.
1. Introduction
This study tries to address the issue of sulphate attack on geotechnical
infrastructure by using coconut coir. Sulphate attack issue has been one
of the key research interests around the geotechnical engineering world
[1–3]. Previous study on application of the recycled material in soil
showed a promising potential of their applications [4–8]. Recent studies
showed potential of the application of coir fibre as a stabilisation agent
[9,10].
The salt existing in the sulphate has a destructive impact on the hy-
dration bonds and make them weaken. The negative impact of the salt on
hydration products already has been investigated and proofed [11,12].
To improve functionality of the concrete as a final product against
and sodium acetate crystallising proposed as the surface protection agent
by Al-Kheetan [13]. It has been indicated that all three materials are
effective to improve durability of the final product. Another study
investigated effect of addition of wool fibres in improvement of the
cementitious products. It has been mentioned that addition of fly ash and
slag in addition to the wool fibre is effective to improve imperviousness
of the cement [14]. A similar study was conducted to investigate the
optimum values of the protective concrete mixtures [15].
To achieve a proper outcome for this research, the impact of mag-
nesium sulphate attack on the unconfined compressive strength (UCS)
was considered for PC treated samples before and after exposure. Two
steps have been taken in this study to achieve the goals. Step 1: achieving
compaction characteristics of each mixture, and step 2: Running UCS
testing before and after exposure to sulphate. To help to properly
investigate the hydration process, the applied curing time was 7, 14 and
28 days.
2. Materials used
2.1. Bentonite
The clay type is in this study was bentonite with less than 18% quartz,
Plastic Limit (PL) of 70%, specific gravity (Gs) 3.30, pH 7 to 9 as shown in
Fig. 1(a).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: amin.chegenizadeh@curtin.edu.au (A. Chegenizadeh), h.nikraz@curtin.edu.au (H. Nikraz), mahdi.keramati@arup.com (M. Keramatikerman).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2020.100111
Received 30 December 2019; Received in revised form 11 February 2020; Accepted 23 February 2020
2590-1230/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
A. Chegenizadeh et al. Results in Engineering 6 (2020) 100111

Fig. 1. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) of (a)Bentonite; (b) PC; (c) CC; (d); naked eye CC; and (d) PSD of bentonite and CC.

Table 1 Table 3
Characteristics of PC and Magnesium sulphate used in this study [16]. Testing program used to perform the tests in this study.
PC characteristics Mix No. Sample ID Bentonite (%) PC (%) CC (%)

Item Percentage 1 B 100 0 0

2 3 PC 97 3 0
Portland clinker <97%
3 5 PC 95 5 0
Gypsum 2–5%
4 7 PC 93 7 0
Limestone 0–7.5%
5 3 PC-2CC 95 3 2
Calcium oxide 0–1%
6 5 PC-2CC 93 5 2
Hexavalent Chromium <10 ppm
7 7 PC-2CC 91 7 2
8 3 PC-4CC 93 3 4
9 5 PC-4CC 91 5 4
10 7 PC-4CC 89 7 4
Table 2 11 3 PC-6CC 91 3 6
Characteristics of magnesium sulphate used in this study. 12 5 PC-6CC 89 5 6
13 7 PC-6CC 87 7 6
Magnesium Sulphate

Characteristics Value

specific gravity (Gs) 1.68 g/cm3 2.3. Coconut coir (CC)

molecular weight 246.47 g/mol
melting point 200  C Particle size distribution (PSD) curve can be seen in Fig. 1(d–e).
colour white
water soluble Complete soluble
2.4. Magnesium sulphate

2.2. Portland cement (PC) Table 2 shows the characteristics of used magnesium sulphate used in
this study.
The ordinary Portland cement (PC) has been used in this study,
Table 1 shows the characteristics can be found in Table 1. Fig. 1(b)
2.5. Standard compaction test
represents the used PC.
Standard proctor test was conducted according to ASTM D1557 [17]
for all mixed outlined in Table 2. The results can be seen in Table 3. The

2
A. Chegenizadeh et al. Results in Engineering 6 (2020) 100111

Fig. 2. (a) Samples before exposure; (b) wrapped sample to be cured; (c) sulphate bath for samples.

Table 4
The results of compaction testing including optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD) for tested mixtures.
Mix No. Sample ID Bentonite (%) PC (%) CC (%) OMC (%) MDD (gr/cm3)

1 B 100 0 0 58.1 1.118

2 3 PC 97 3 0 62.4 1.115
3 5 PC 95 5 0 64.7 1.111
4 7 PC 93 7 0 66.1 1.085
5 3 PC-2CC 95 3 2 65.4 1.087
6 5 PC-2CC 93 5 2 66.2 1.086
7 7 PC-2CC 91 7 2 67.1 1.081
8 3 PC-4CC 93 3 4 64.8 1.103
9 5 PC-4CC 91 5 4 66.9 1.093
10 7 PC-4CC 89 7 4 67.6 1.087
11 3 PC-6CC 91 3 6 65.3 1.098
12 5 PC-6CC 89 5 6 66.8 1.094
13 7 PC-6CC 87 7 6 68.2 1.089

results showed increment of OMC (Optimum Moisture Content) with
increasing in CC percentage and PC percentage. MDD (Maximum Dry
Density) decreased by increasing in PC and CC percentage.
3. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) test
The UCS testing was run following in accordance with ASTM D2166
[18]. After curing, benchmark samples tested before exposure. The
exposed samples also tested for the UCS values, then the values of
benchmark with exposed samples were compared to find out if the CC
could help the blend to resist more against sulphate attack. A conserva-
tive rate of 0.1 mm/min was used to run each UCS test. Fig. 2 shows the
samples before exposure. Also, Fig. 2(b) shows the wrapped soil speci-
mens during the curing time, and finally, Fig. 2(c) shows samples when
exposed to MgSO4 solution. A concentration of 42.2 g/L was used to
simulate the attack condition in accordance to ASTM C1012 [19]. Table 3
also shows the testing program used in this study to perform the tests.
Table 4 also shows the results of compaction testing conducted before
UCS tests.
3.1. UCS results and discussions
The results of UCS testing before and after exposure to sulphate attack
and after 7, 14, and 28 days curing period have been presented in Fig. 3,
Fig. 4, and Fig. 5 respectively. In general, the results show that the
samples without CC are very susceptible to collapse. Also, it can be from
the figures that there is a dramatic decrease in UCS values when the
samples were exposed to the sulphate solution. For instance, when 2% CC
was added to the mixtures, the increase in the UCS value was apparent in
both after and before exposure cases. The results also showed that more
than 2% CC was not much effective as by itself caused dropping strength
in benchmark UCS compare to 2% and while exposed to magnesium
sulphate. In fact, the samples containing 2% CC had a better performance
in compare with 4 and 6% of CC. Same trend was noted in 14 days and 28

3
A. Chegenizadeh et al. Results in Engineering 6 (2020) 100111

Fig. 3. UCS results before and after exposure to sulphate for 7 days curing.

Fig. 4. UCS results before and after exposure to sulphate for 14 days curing.

4
A. Chegenizadeh et al.
Fig. 5. UCS results before and after exposure to sulphate for 28 days curing.
days of curing times. In general, addition of 2% CC appears to be the most
effective percentage in controlling the sulphate attack in this study.
4. Conclusions
This study investigated effect of coconut coir addition on improve-
ment of the mechanical behaviour of the soil exposed to magnesium
sulphate attack. To do so, a series of compaction tests and unconfined
compressive strength (UCS) tests were designed and performed. The
optimum moisture contents (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD)
values obtained in the compaction testing stage used to prepare the UCS
samples in the most effective way. After that, the UCS samples were
prepared and the samples were cured for 7, 14, and 28 days to investigate
effect of curing times. Three percentages of 2, 4, and 6% for CC were
mixed with PC and bentonite and the specimens were tested before and
after magnesium sulphate exposure. The results showed that addition of
CC is effective to improve the sulphate resistivity of the specimens
Results in Engineering 6 (2020) 100111
however, the optimum value to increase resistance of the specimens
against sulphate attack is 2%.
Declaration of competing interests
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the use of Curtin University’s Microscopy &
Microanalysis Facility, whose instrumentation has been partially funded
by the University, and State and Commonwealth Governments.
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