Abstract:
Understanding soil shrinkage and retaining water is essential for learning more about
the possibility of cracking of liner. Moreover, the factors that influence it are also important to
know to improve the material tested as hazardous waste liners. The vapour equilibrium technique
is widely used to control suction of compacted soils experiencing drying-wetting phenomena. It
is considered to be inexpensive, simple, and has the ability to adequately control the suction
applied to soil samples. This paper, therefore, describes its application in studying the shrinkage
and water retention in compacted claystone-bentonite mixtures. This involved using five
saturated salt solutions including potassium sulphate (K2SO4), potassium chloride (KCl), sodium
chloride (NaCl), potassium carbonate (K2CO3), and magnesium chloride (MgCl2.6H2O). The
sample was allowed to be in equilibrium with the relative humidity salt solution and a calliper
was used to measure the dimensions every day up to when this was achieved. The results showed
the bentonite in the mixture affects the amount of shrinkage and water retention while the
sample's initial moisture content was also found to be very influential on the magnitude of the
primary and residual shrinkage. Moreover, the sample's ability to hold water was almost the same
without differentiating the initial water content at a total suction of more than 41084.91 kPa
