Accumulative Strain of Sand-Containing Soft Soil Reinforced by Cement and Sodium Silicate under Traffic Loading

Abstract

The accumulative strain of sand-containing soft soil is crucial to the stability of the construction of embankment engineering such as expressways and high-speed railways. However, little attention has been devoted to the accumulative strain of sand-containing soft soil. In the current study, a series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed to investigate the accumulative strain of sand-containing soft soil reinforced by cement and sodium silicate under traffic loading. In addition, the accumulative strain model was proposed to describe the characteristic of accumulative strain. The results show that for the specimens with a high sand content (25%, 30%, and 35%), the accumulative strain increases obviously with the increase of the sand content. For the specimen with a cement content of 3%, the accumulative strain increases distinctly with the increasing loading time. The accumulative strain is strongly influenced by confining pressure. When the repeated cyclic stress amplitude is greater than 0.17 kN, the increase rate of accumulative strain is greater. The shorter the curing time is, the greater the accumulative strain is. The calculated results of the accumulative strain model show a good agreement with test data. Hence, the accumulative strain model can better describe the characteristic of accumulative strain.