Evaluation and prediction of tensile properties of cement stabilized soils

Abstract

Mixing in-situ soils with a few percent of hydraulic binders to produce cemented stabilized soils (CSS) is a common technique to enhance its mechanical properties. To evaluate mechanical performances of CSS, French technical guidelines recommend using tensile properties. The aim of the present study is to investigate the influence of in situ factors on indirect tensile test (ITS) for two CSS. Test were carried out at curing times varying from 7 up to 360 days for seven treatment groups. Results were treated by means of Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the building of multilinear prediction models. Results showed that higher ITS values are related to cement content and curing time. In both cases, proposed models described accurately the measured ITS values (R² > 0.8). The proposed methodology showed to be appropriated to extend conventional analysis for the study of CSS.