Effect of mechanical property of cemented soil under the different pH value

•Acid-base environment can reduce the UCS increase rate of cemented soil blocks.•Increasing the cement content can enhance the corrosion resistance of cemented soil.•In neutral environment, the strength of cemented soil can reach its peak.•The microstructures, mechanical properties and failure modes were investigated.•The cement which has anti-pollution effect such as slag cement should be more applied.

Cemented soil has been widely used in civil engineering. Groundwater affected by several environment factors, such as agriculture, industry, living and seawater, is often acid or alkaline and usually aggressive to cemented soil. In practice, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) is often used as one of the basic indicators to evaluate the mechanical property of cemented soil. This paper mainly studies the impacts of environmental contamination on the mechanical property of cemented soil, the factors such as cement content, curing age and pH value are taken into consideration. The results show that, the appearance of cemented soil is seriously eroded under acid conditions; while in alkaline conditions it is affected slightly. The UCS of cemented soil increases with cement content and curing age. However, the increase is much slower than that of regular cemented soil. In strong acid and strong alkaline environments, the strength loss can reach 30%. In addition, the electron scanner was used to observe the microstructure of test blocks, and microscopic mechanism of failure was analyzed. The results of this paper can provide reasonable basis for durability evaluation, residual life prediction and durability design of cemented soil.