The Effectiveness of Two Polymer-Based Stabilisers Offering an Alternative to Conventional Sand Stabilisation Methods

Abstract

Sand stabilisation techniques have largely been utilised on the basis of trial-and-error at various locations in Kuwait. However, no specific technique has been identified as the most suitable so far. Short-term solutions, though attractive, are more costly and their effect is short-lived. Mechanical, chemical and biological dune and encroaching sand control techniques have been attempted, however, in isolation, leading to limited success with financial penalties sometimes. A common shortcoming of mechanical methods is the long-term, high-cost sand clearance work required to maintain efficiency, e.g., cost of clearing 415,000 m³ of accumulated sand from As-Salmi Road-Kuwait reached KD108,166 during 5 months in 1993/1994. Chemical methods have their drawbacks too, mainly the pollution caused to the environment. For biological methods, it is well known that the revegetation of sand dunes of heights above 1.5 m is biologically non-viable without the initial use of mechanical and/or chemical techniques. Only after the soil has been stabilised and the threat of seedling burial and seedling root exposure has been eliminated, can one turn to biological techniques. In this paper we report on the preliminary findings of a series of laboratory experiments with the objective of assessing the stabilisation characteristics of two stabilisation chemicals, namely SUMF and SF-C, on sand taken from As-Salmi and Al-Atraf area in Kuwait. The series of the experiments conducted covered: grain size and chemical composition analyses as well as unconfined compression and water runoff erosion tests. The results obtained demonstrated the superiority of SUMF stabiliser when it comes to the mechanical strength. However, the water runoff erosion tests showed the SF-C treated samples to have higher resistance to water erosion than those treated with SUMF. Also, SF-C was superior as far as the thickness of the stabiliser layer is concerned.