Influence of Lime on Shrinkage Behavior of Soils

Damage due to soil shrinkage is a serious problem in many parts of the world. Lime can significantly improve the performance of soils, both in terms of increase in strength and reduced swelling. However, its efficacy in reducing shrinkage of soils has not been studied much. A series of experiments were conducted to develop an understanding of the shrinkage behavior of lime-treated soils. Six different soils covering wide range of plasticity were treated with varied percentage of lime and curing period. Lime increases the shrinkage limit of soils irrespective of their plasticity characteristics; however, it is more in case of high plastic soils than the low plastic ones. Volumetric shrinkage continued to reduce until about 5% of lime content beyond which further reduction was marginal. Hence 5% of lime can be considered as the optimum lime content giving maximum shrinkage reduction. With lime the shrinkage responses of soils were found to have grown flatter indicating that lime can effectively reduce the rate of shrinkage leading to reduced cracking of soils.