Abstract
Cement stabilization is commonly used for improving soft soils and the mechanical behaviour of cemented pure clay has been well documented. However, limited studies have investigated the effect of sand in a cement-clay matrix because the conventional water to solid (solid includes soil and cement) ratio cannot be simply used to characterize the behaviour of cemented binary mixture. The water holding capacity of the mixture reduces with increase in sand content, when the water to solid ratio is kept constant. In this study, the ratio of water to clay and cement is kept constant, so that the effect of sand content could be studied. The materials used in this study are kaolin clay, sand with D50 of 0.71 mm and Ordinary Portland cement type 1. Sand content varies from 0% to 50% and curing time is kept constant at 7 days. We used three ratios of water to clay and cement which correspond to 139%, 104% and 78%. The isotropic yield point increases with increase in sand content and cement content, while it reduces with increase in water content. A power function captures the variation of yield point with the ratio of water to cement and clay.
Highlights
The mechanical properties of pure clay and pure sand have been studied thoroughly over the years
This paper studied the effect of sand in a cemented clay matrix
It was noted that the use of free water to cement does not clearly delineate the effect of sand in a cemented binary mixture
Summary
The mechanical properties of pure clay and pure sand have been studied thoroughly over the years. In-situ condition is closer to a mixture of clay, sand or silt. The properties of these binary mixtures are different from those pure clay or pure sand [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Marine clay is prevalent in the eastern part of Singapore, which has low strength and high compressibility. During underground excavation for construction of tunnels and caverns, the dredged soil consists of mostly marine clay, which has high sand content and water content. Since the low strength and high compressibility of these materials make it difficult to be used for geotechnical application, chemical stabilization through cement mixing is often carried out to improve the properties of these geomaterials
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