Vipulanandan, Cumaraswamy2019-09-132019-09-13May 20172017-05May 2017https://hdl.handle.net/10657/4521In this study, acrylamide polymer was used to modify the expansive clays and repair the damaged smart cement. Also the effect of salt contamination on the smart cement behavior was investigated. In the expansive clay treatment study, index properties, swell potential and swell pressure were quantified to characterize the effectiveness of the polymer treatment. Clay soil with liquid limit in the range of 70-80 % was studied. The addition of 0.3 % of polymer by the weight of dry soil reduced the plasticity index by 35 %. Failed smart cement specimens were repaired using the acrylamide polymer to recover the piezo-resistivity and the tensile strength. The treatment showed 56-59 % and 71-95 % of recovery in piezo-resistivity at failure peak stress and tensile strength. Additionally, the tensile piezo-resistive behavior of salt contaminated oil well cement slurry was investigated under splitting tensile loading. Cement composites having sea salt at 2, 4, and 10 % by weight of water, and conductive fillers of 0.1% of total weight of the cement composite were used. While 2 and 4 % of salt contaminated samples did not affect the sensitivity significantly, the 10 % of salt contaminated sample affected the sensitivity adversely.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Expansive soilPolymersSmart cement2019-09-13Thesisborn digital