Sachin Kunagalli

1
To Predict The Heaving Potential of Soils Using
GIS
Abstract The dependency on software programs has
increased now-a-days for its accuracy and the
speed with which it can complete the job.
Geographic Information System is one such
application. With the use of programs like
ArcView GIS 3.2 or ArcView GIS 8.2 the soil
parameters and certain other predictions like
determining heaving potential of soils can be
predicted with greater amount of accuracy and in
very less time. The objective of my project is to
determine the heaving potential of clay bearing
soils. The data I needed partly came the county
soil survey report and partly from the ongoing
research. My area of interest is soil strip along
the route SH 130. SH 130 is a new pavement coming
up between Seguin (San Antonio) and Georgetown
(Austin). SH 130 connect I 35 and I 10. The model
I am going to develop using ArcView GIS 3.2 will
predict the high heaving potential areas. The
model predicts the areas solely on the data that
I have entered into the attribute table. Heaving
potential is predicted only in Williamson County
as of now because of the time constraint.
Overview A pavement surface
course is generally one of the two forms
Portland cement concrete or asphalt concrete.
Lime stabilization comes into
picture when the subgrade soil is very soft.
The problem of heaving is common
when sulfate is present in the subgrade soil.
A secondary mineral called
ETTRINGITE is formed under favorable conditions.
Abundant amount of water
High Sulfate concentration
By Sachin Kunagalli Graduate Student Department
of Civil Engineering Texas AM University Instruct
or Dr Francisco Olivera, PhD, P.E CVEN 689
Applications of GIS to Civil Engineering Date
April 29, 2003
Methodology The data I have used is
shape file of soils of all the four counties from
SSURGO. I have the scanned images of the route of
SH 130. The data of soil swell and water capacity
from the county soil survey report from USDA and
sulfate from the ongoing research are obtained.
Sulfate
The next step was to develop the grid map of SH
130. This map is giving us the co-ordinates of
new road (SH 130).
Attribute table with all the values for calcium
carbonate soil swell, water capacity and sulfate.
Grid map of SH 130
Soil swell
Heaving potential areas

• Application, results, discussion and Conclusions
• The study area I have chosen involves four
  counties i.e. Williamson, Travis, Caldwell and
  Guadalupe. SH 130 is road going through all the
  four counties. The data that I used for the
  project are soils data from SSURGO, scanned
  images of SH 130 and the County soil survey
  report from USDA.
• The map that I have developed has the
  capacity to
• Predict heaving potential areas.
• Reduces time to predict these areas.
• Gives the mineral compositions like sulfate,
  calcium carbonate, soil swell and the water
  capacity for whole of Williamson County.
• This map can be used by the engineers to see
  where heaving is presumed to occur. When once the
  heaving potential areas are predicted the
  necessary soil testing can be carried out and the
  required preventive measures can be taken. By
  using this map the major labor intensive work of
  going to field and taking the soil samples along
  the entire stretch of SH 130 is eliminated.

Route map of SH 130
Water capacity