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Clay is a raw material that has many uses across the different industries around the world. The
principal use of clay in some part of Nigeria are: pots making, ornamental decoration and ceramics
etc. The study examine engineering properties of sawdust modified clay soil and to determine
thegeotechnical properties of these materials be established to define the suitability of sawdust
modified clay soil for engineeringpurposes. Test such as: porosity, permeability, atterberg limit, cold
compressive strength, impact strength, unconfined compressive strength and absorption test. The
clay samples were collected from Ondo state, Niger state, Ekiti state and Lagosstate respectively in
Nigeria. It was cleaned, soaked, dried, crushed and sieved then moulded to some definite shapes
such as cylindrical and rectangular shape depending on the type of test carried out on the various
clay samples. 0%, 45%, 50% and 60%percentages of sawdust were varied with the clay sample and
moulded.. Results obtained shows that natural water content are fairly okay which varied
between2.34% and 3.5% . The atterbag limit classified soil as MH, ML,CL and ML for for all the
location respectively according [21]. The permeability test shows that all the sample are within the
range of semi pervious clay material according to USBR specification. The effect of sawdust on the
clay materials as shown in figure 1,2 and 3 shows that the modified clay has a lower strength, a
higher water absorption and a higher porosity as the sawdust content in the clay sample increases
and vice versa, this is due to effect of pores created by sawdust. Results obtained show that Lagos
has the highest water retention potential compare to other locationand has the lowest rate of water
absorption, highest resistance to shattering which make the sample the strongest in term of
compressive strength and also very suitable as a filter media for industrial application.
Key words: porosity, permeability, compressive strength, impact test, water absorption test