SOILS AND FOUNDATIONS, cilt.59, sa.3, ss.687-698, 2019 (SCI-Expanded)
Cement additions improve the performance of granular soils. However, most literature examples of cement additions are in poorly graded sands, either to mimic the behaviour of sandstones or to accentuate the mechanical differences between cemented and uncemented soils. In this article, the behaviour of a well graded granular soil, used for base and sub-base of roads, was studied by doing triaxial tests on cemented and uncemented samples. Samples were compacted to achieve a dense fabric and tested at stresses commonly used in practice. Sieving was used to understand if breakage is important and to determine the grain size distributions of the samples after compaction and shearing. The results show that the addition of small percentages of cement greatly increase stiffness and dilation. Thereby, generating larger strengths; this is particularly important at low confining stresses in roads and parking areas, where this material is commonly used. At large strains, the results show that different Critical State Lines exist for both the uncemented and cemented soils. Each line has a different slope, which is believed to be the result of the evolution of the grain size distribution of the cemented soil. The normalised data indicate that a unique state boundary surface can be determined for all three tested soils. (C) 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.