Paper Title
An Assessment of The Effects of Light Crude Oil on The Geotechnical Properties of Asoil
Abstract
The present study investigates the effect of light crude oil (LCO) on geotechnical properties of soil. The soil
samples were obtained from site of Tarjan refineries and classified as silty clay of low plasticity (CL) and silty sand of nonplasticity.
The soil samples are artificially contaminated with three percentages of crude oil, from 0%, 6% and 12 % in
relative to the dry weight of soil. The soil samples were mixed by hands with crude oil and left for two weeks in order to
allow chemical reactions between soil particles and crude oil. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on both clean and
artificially contaminated soil samples to measure the effects of crude oil on the compaction, direct shear strength and CBR
testing results. The results indicated that the maximum dry density, the optimum moisture content and California bearing
ratio decreased as the percent of contamination increased.
Keywords - Light crude oil, fine soil, direct shear, compaction and CBR.