Crushed cemented sand from arid areas has been used as a road base material in highway construction in kuwait owing to the lack of good granular soils. Following several problems of pavement heave andcracking and of ground floor slabs placed on those soils, an extensive laboratory testing program was carried out on samples from six sites to examine the causes of those problems and to focus on suitable remedial measures. The program consisted of classification tests, chemical and mineralogical analysis, swelling tests in the consolidation apparatus, and cbr tests. The tests were performed on crushed or remolded soils and on the fines and coarse fractions separately. Test results indicated that several environmental factors have contributed to the high swell potential: the low natural moisture content, large placement density, soil disturbance owing to the breaking of cementation bonds, and the presence of large amounts of fines in thesoil matrix. Swelling increased sharply as the percent of fines exceeded 35%, although the clay minerals were rather scarce in the fines and the plasticity index was below 20 for all soils. Hydrated limewas found to be effective as an additive in reducing the swelling potential of the local soils and in increasing their bearing capacity. This paper appears in transportation research record no. 1288, Geotechnical engineering 1990.
Samenvatting