STUDY OF THE MECHANICAL STRENGTH OF SILTY SOIL TREATED WITH LIME

Abstract

The Guabirotuba formation is located in the sedimentary basin of Curitiba, Brazil. Most of the formation’s soils are fine-grained, and cannot be used to construct layers for pavements and slope protection or to support shallow foundations. The objective of the present research is to study the strength of a Guabirotuba formation soil treated with different lime contents after 90 days of curing, through unconfined compression, split tensile and direct shear tests, and to study the influence of the water/lime, and porosity/volumetric content (η/Lv) ratios on this strength. The control parameters evaluated were porosity, moisture content, lime content, curing time, and η/Lv ratio. The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the η/Lv ratio to evaluate the spit tensile/compression ratio of this type of soil. In the direct shear tests, increased cohesion and friction angle were also observed.