Effect of Curing Pressure on Compression and Consolidation Behaviors of Cement Admixed Clay

Abstract

The cemented soils are typically produced and cured under confining pressure of soil. The cemented soil properties are, however, obtained from laboratory tests on the cement admixed clay samples cured under atmospheric pressure. Thus, the parameters of cemented soil obtained from laboratory tests are not representative of the actual values in the field. In this research, a series of consolidation tests using oedometer apparatus on cement admixed clay samples with different curing pressure conditions was carried out. The samples was cured under pressure values of 0 kPa (atmospheric pressure) and 50 kPa. The test samples with values of cement content of 0, 1 and 2 percent were cured for 28 days before testing. The compression curves of cement admixed kaolin showed the elasto-plastic deformation in all cases of the tests. It was found that the range of void ratio of the samples with curing pressure of 0 kPa (atmospheric pressure) was higher than that of the samples with curing pressure of 50 kPa. With increasing curing pressure and cement content, the value of recompression index decreased while the value of compression index was approximately constant. It was also observed that the preconsolidation pressure increased with increasing cement content for both cases of curing pressure. It should be noted that the values of preconsolidation pressure increased with increasing curing pressure. Moreover, the values of coefficient of consolidation decreased with increasing effective vertical stress in all cases. It was also found that the values of coefficient of consolidation increased with increasing curing pressure and cement content.