A general relationship to estimate strength of fibre-reinforced cemented fine-grained soils

Abstract

Fibre addition and Portland cement treatment are used to amend the adverse characteristics of some fine-grained soils and to enhance their mechanical properties. The present study proposes a single power function that quantifies the effects of the amount of cement and porosity on the unconfined compressive (qu) and split tensile (qt) strength of fibre-reinforced fine-grained soil-cement mixtures. The practical value of the equation is that only one unconfined compression (or split tensile) test of a specimen moulded with a specific fibre type, fibre amount, specific cement amount, porosity, and cured for a given time period is required to estimate the strength of the fibre-cement soil mixture. The equation can be used for a wide range of porosities and cement contents, and for other fibre-reinforced fine-grained soils treated with cement.

Effects of the Ratio of Porosity to Volumetric Cement Content on the Unconfined Compressive Strength of Cement Bound Fine Grained Soils

“…In addition, to compare the results of cement-soil mixtures with different native soils and binding agents, in [4], the authors proposed the normalization of the Rc-(n/ ) as:…”

“…In addition, previous research with different soils [41] suggests that this exponent is not greater than one, which means that porosity is more important than cement bonding for the mechanical properties of cement-soil mixtures. Thus, for the soil analyzed in this study, a clayey soil A-6( 14), modified with 10% to 14% Portland cement, the unconfined compressive strength after 7 days of cure can be estimated from the porosity and the volumetric cement content as: In addition, to compare the results of cement-soil mixtures with different native soils and binding agents, in [4], the authors proposed the normalization of the Rc-(n/ C α iv ) as:…”

“…One of the most common soil improvement techniques for fine-grained soils is to compact the in situ soil with cement, as adequate strength can be achieved quickly. Thus, the beneficial effects of cement treatment, or other binding agents, on the engineering properties of a broad range of soils have been widely documented [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Clayey sands are fine-graded soils that are rich in silt and clay particles, whose physical state is highly affected by the water content and therefore are expected to provide fair to poor subgrade bearing capacity.…”

Effects of Soil Properties on the Performance of TRD Cut‐Off Wall

“…Liu and Starcher [10] discovered that the unconfined compressive strength of soft soil cement increases as the curing age and stress of solidification, and the stiffness of soft soil cement significantly improves as well under the solidification stress. Consoli et al [11] established a functional relationship among the unconfined compressive strength, the splitting strength, cement content, and porosity of fibrereinforced fine-grained cement soil. Miller and Azad [12] found that the unconfined compressive strength of cemented soil was inversely proportional to the plasticity index of the reinforced clay and was directly proportional to the clay content.…”

Discussion of “Unconfined Compressive and Splitting Tensile Strength of Basalt Fiber–Reinforced Biocemented Sand” by Yang Xiao, Xiang He, T. Matthew Evans, Armin W. Stuedlein, and Hanlong Liu

“…An important item of the work deals with empirical formulations for strength, namely, the ones developed by Consoli et al (2007Consoli et al ( , 2017. Recent studies by Diambra et al (2017Diambra et al ( , 2018, for artificially cemented soils, and Festugato et al 2018, for fiberreinforced artificially cemented soils, have theoretically devised such formulations and shown they are not purely empirical.…”