Dynamics of Strength Gain in Sandy Soil Stabilised with Mixed Binders Evaluated by Elastic P-Waves during Compressive Loading

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of stabilisation of poor subgrade soil for improving its engineering properties and stiffness. The study aim is to evaluate the effects from single and mixed binders on the gain of strength in sandy soil over the period of curing. We propose an effective non-destructive approach of using P-waves for identifying soil strength upon stabilisation. The growth of strength and stiffness is strongly dependent on time of curing and type of the stabilising agents which can include both single binders and their blended mixtures. The diverse effects from mixed binders on the properties of soil were evaluated, compared and analysed. We performed the experimental trials of five different binders for stabilisation of sandy soil using cement, lime, Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBFS), energy fly ash and bio fly ash. The methodology included soil stabilisation by binders during a total period of 90 days, strength test for the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) and seismic tests on the stabilised samples. The dynamics of soil behaviour stabilised by different binders for days 7, 14, 28 and 90 was statistically analysed and compared. The optimisation of binder blending has been performed using mixture simplex lattice design with three binders in each case as independent variables. Using P-waves naturally exploited strength characteristics of soil samples and allowed us to compare the effects from the individual and blended binders over the complete period of curing with dominating mixes. The results indicate that strength growth in stabilised soil samples is nonlinear in both time and content of binders with dominating effects from slag which contributed the most to the compressive strength development, followed by cement.