ISSN: 1945-7545
CODEN: GTJODJ
Published Online: 3 January 2011
Page Count: 5

Reconstitution of Saturated Cement-Treated Soil by Wet-Mixing

Lewsley, Gregory
Geotechnical Engineer, Knight Piesold, Ltd., 1400-750 W. Pender, Vancouver, BC

Fannin, R. Jonathan
P.Eng.Professor of Civil Engineering, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

(Received 7 July 2008; accepted 9 December 2010)

Abstract

A new method is described for the reconstitution of cement-treated specimens of sand and silt for laboratory strength tests. Saturation of the slurry mix is attained through boiling the sand fraction at atmospheric pressure, boiling the silt fraction at a pressure that is reduced to a vacuum of 80 kPa, and mechanised blending of cement into the combined soil fractions in a rigid-walled former that is subjected to the same vacuum pressure. Reproducibility of the method is demonstrated from tests on four identical homogeneous specimens that yield a very narrow range in water content, bulk density, and unconfined compression strength. It is further evident in the trend of increasing strength with normalized cement content in those data.

Keywords:
cement-treated, soil, saturated, wet-mixing, reconstitution, strength

Paper ID: GTJ102012
DOI: 10.1520/GTJ102012
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