Assessment of mechanical properties of cement stabilized soils

Recently, the cement stabilized soil is widely used in pavement applications due to its high potential saving in cost and time. An extensive laboratory tests were conducted to study the mechanical properties of cement stabilized materials in this research. Three studied soils included sand, laterite and clay. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) were carried out on the three subgrade samples to determine the quantities of morphological formation and chemical compound. The effect of cement content on the strength of the cement-stabilized soil samples was examined via the unconfined compression strength ( q u ) test, the soaked California bearing ratio (CBR) test, the third-point loading test and the plate loading test. The results showed that the 28-day q u , the soaked CBR , the modulus of rupture ( M R ) and the modulus of subgrade reaction ( K ) of the 3 stabilized subgrade materials increased with an increase in cement content. The relationships of K , soaked CBR and M R versus q u were developed. With the known q u value, the K, soaked CBR and M R values can be simply approximated. Finally, the K values by the proposed method were validated by comparing with the FEM results. Therefore, these developed relationships are useful for researchers, engineers and practitioners in pavement design.