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Civil Engineering materials and


pavement design
SGM221
Theory 14
23 August 2010

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• Tests and practicals being marked
• Feedback as soon as all tests are back
• Probably 1 September 2010

• PI question – 42% correct


• Two similar questions (12 and 14) – system selected
incorrectly, ignore second

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Theory 14

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Soil stabilisation

• Any treatment or method intended to improve the


properties of the soil
– Mechanical stabilisation (i.e. compaction or mixing of
different material fractions)
– Chemical stabilisation (addition of stabilisers such as
cement, lime or fly-ash)

• Requires detailed design to


– ensure correct amount of stabiliser
– ensure required improvement in properties are
attained
– without negative side-effects - development of block
cracking

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History

• Lime as building material dates back some 5 000 years


• Lime and clay mixed and compacted to form bricks
– pyramids of Shensi in Tibet

• 2 000 years ago


– Romans used lime to improve the quality of roads
– Mixtures of lime and volcanic ash called "pozzolana"
– "cement" derived from the Latin word "caementum“
– used by the Romans to describe aggregate particles in
a mortar

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History

• John Smeaton - Eddystone lighthouse (1756)


– mixture of blue lime and pozzolanic clay
• Not aware that he had discovered the basic principle of cement
manufacture
• Joseph Aspdin patent the process ("Portland cement“) in 1824
• United States
– tests with lime stabilisation since 1930
– Development of triaxial compression test in 1945 allowed
stabilisation methods to be compared directly with one
another

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History South Africa

• First cement manufactured in South Africa


– 1892 in the "Eerste Cement Fabrieken" at Daspoort,
Pretoria
• First chemical stabilisation trials
– Transvaal (1941)
• 5 % cement mixed into a soil layer – between Pretoria
and Delmas (P36/1)
• used ripper teeth of graders and light ploughs
– 1942
• National route between Standerton and Volksrust
– more effective mixing methods
• Virtually every sealed road in Gauteng, one or more of the
pavement layers is now stabilised (from Gauteng stabilisation
manual, 2003)
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Chemical stabilisation

• Used for a wide range of purposes


– To improve the bearing capacity and strength of pavement
layers and temporary bypasses
– To delay certain chemical reactions
• weathering of sulphides and other minerals
– To dry out soil where the moisture content is too high for
successful compaction
– To make soil less permeable
– To reduce plasticity of soils - reduce the effect of moisture
variations
– To improve compactability of clays
• changing the clay to a more granular and workable
material
– To reduce swelling and shrinkage of clays
– To neutralise sulphuric acid and reduce solubility of the
highly soluble sulphate salts in gold and certain other mine
waste rock crushed stone base materials

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Factors affecting strength and strength development

• Soil type and properties


• Quantity of stabiliser added
• Type and fineness of stabiliser
• Uniformity of mixing
• Density to which the stabilised soil or gravel is compacted
• Time of compaction
• Temperature during compaction
• Curing period and conditions

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Purpose of stabilisation

• Improve properties of a soil


– Ensure soil is suitable for use in relevant pavement layer
– will perform over the design life of the road

• Potential improvements
– Improved strength
– Improved workability
– Improved durability
– Reduced permeability
– Reduced plasticity
– Reduced shrinkage
– Reduced swell

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• Actual results achieved are controlled by
– type of stabiliser
– quantity of stabiliser
– physical properties of the natural soil
• (e.g. grading, PI, linear shrinkage)

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• Highly plastic clays and water sensitive subgrade soils
– difficult to work and compact, especially when wet

• Improvement in workability of material when wet


– Lime added to wet soil
• soil becomes more friable
• plasticity is reduced
• partially dried out
• better compactability
– When compacted
• negative effect of later heavy rains is reduced

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• Lime stabilisation reactions
– between lime and clay fraction of the soils

• Sandy soils do not usually stabilise well with lime

• However
– certain non-plastic calcretes and sandstones
containing amorphous silica undergo rapid and strong
cementation with lime

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• Cemented materials
– relatively brittle
– if loaded beyond a certain limit will develop
microcracks

• Important influence on behaviour of stabilised layers in


flexible pavements
– Microcracking typically starts at about
• 35 % of ultimate strength
• 25 % of strain mobilised before the material breaks
– Related directly to traffic loads on the layer and
dictates the ultimate road performance

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