Parameters Controlling Strength of Industrial Waste-Lime Amended Soil

Abstract

Unconfined compression tests and suction measurements were carried out in the present work on sandy specimens with distinct Class F fly ash amounts, lime contents, porosities and curing periods to assess key parameters controlling strength of fly ash-lime amended soil. A special effort has been allocated in order to develop a dosage methodology for fly ash-lime improved soils based in a rational criterion, as it exists in the concrete technology where the water/cement ratio plays a fundamental role in the assessment of the target strength. The results show that the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) increased linearly with the amount of lime for soil-fly ash-lime mixtures at all curing time periods studied. A power function fits better the relation UCS-porosity for soil-fly ash-lime mixtures. The bigger the amount of fly ash and the curing time, the larger the UCS for any given porosity and lime content. Finally, the porosity/volumetric lime content ratio, in which volumetric lime content is adjusted by a coefficient (in this case a unique value-0.12-was found for all soil-fly ash-lime mixtures and all curing periods studied) to end in single correlations for each curing period, show to be a good parameter in the evaluation of the unconfined compressive strength of the soil studied (UCS varies non-linearly with the porosity/volumetric lime content ratio in the case of fly ash-lime addition).