Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Shortage of crushed rock as pavement base course for road construction and an increase in fuel cost have prompted the search for alternative materials. In this regard, improvements of the lateritic soil cement (LSC) have been investigated. The production of crushed rock involves drilling, blasting, crushing and transportation, which are the cause of environmental problems. The objective is to use the improved lateritic soil instead of crushed rock as the base course material for highway pavement construction. In order to understand why the LSC has higher strength, microstructure of LSC composite was investigated by X-ray diffraction machine (XRD) and the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The improvement of the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of LSC composite was also evaluated. As regards the application aspect, the results shows that cement mixed lateritic soils are suitable for base course construction. Even though properties of stabilized soils have been widely studied in many countries, there are still no general agreements as to which mechanism that can best illustrate how the stabilized soil’s properties are improved. The present study investigated, among other properties, the strength parameter of the stabilized soil sample as more stabilizing binder was added. It was found that as the amount of the added chemical, calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) increased, the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) of the sample also exhibited corresponding increase.
Keywords: lateritic soil, crushed rock, cement, sustainable pavements, stabilization