Effect of long-term soaking and leaching on the behaviour of lime-stabilised gypseous soil

Abstract

This paper aims to study the effect of long-term soaking and leaching on the stability properties of fine-grained soil with and without gypsum content. The soil samples were stabilised with 3% lime and cured for 28 days at 20°C. The results showed the long-term soaking (up to 180 days) effect on the unconfined compressive strength, and volume change of the stabilised soil samples. These properties are degraded when compared to the initial properties of the unsoaked samples. Further, the gypsum content has significant effects on the geotechnical properties of soil samples during soaking process. The effect of soaking on the cured samples (28 days) seems to be more important than the benefits induced by lime–clay reactions. The permeability of soil samples is strongly related to the gypsum content during the leaching test, and the effect of leaching on the permeability increased with gypsum content.