Field and Laboratory Investigation of Highly Organic Clay Stabilized with Portland Cement
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32, Issue 4
Abstract
This article presents mass stabilization studies performed on very soft organic clay, with very high water content, very low pH value, and high clay activity, treated with high early strength dry portland cement. The specimens were prepared in a laboratory with differing cement contents and subjected to unconfined compression tests under different preloading conditions and curing times. Undisturbed samples of the mass stabilized soil were collected in situ and subjected to unconfined compression tests. The results showed that the preloading during the curing period and the amount of cement directly influenced the strength and the secant modulus of the organic clay stabilized in the laboratory, reducing the porosity of the specific blends studied. The strength measured in the laboratory specimens was about twice as high as the strength measured in the field specimens, which, in turn, was about five times higher than the strength of unstabilized soil. Finally, it can be concluded that for the highly organic clay and cement blend conditions studied in this paper, the porosity controls the mechanical properties of the blends.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code generated or used during the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
Acknowledgments
The authors are indebted to the Instituto Alberto Luiz Coimbra de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa de Engenharia (COPPE-UFRJ) technical staff for performing the tests and to Professors Romildo Toledo and Francisco Casanova for their constructive comments. Financial support for the present study was provided by the following Brazilian funding agencies: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia de Reabilitação do Sistema Encosta-Planície (INCT REAGEO), and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 32 • Issue 4 • April 2020
Copyright
©2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 8, 2019
Accepted: Sep 9, 2019
Published online: Feb 11, 2020
Published in print: Apr 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Jul 11, 2020
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