Constitutive behaviour of cement treated marine clay

Abstract

Cement-soil stabilisation has been widely used to improve engineering performance of clayey soils in various applications. This thesis investigates the microstructure and macroscopic behaviour of laboratory prepared cement treated clay specimens that were cured under atmospheric, undrained and drained conditions. After a 7-day curing period, the volume-mass properties, unconfined compressive, isotropic compressive, undrained and drained triaxial compressive tests were conducted to evaluate the mechanical behaviour of these specimens. The results show that the level of effective stress which the soil experiences during curing has a significant effect on its post-curing microstructure and is manifested in the macroscopic behaviour. The microstructural observations reveal that the cement-treated clay adopts a microstructure which can be described as flocculated with large voids entrapped within the particle clusters. Finally, a general triaxial behavioural framework which accounts for continuous change in soil structure during loadings under different levels of confining stresses is proposed.