Influence of Water Content in the UCS of Soil-Cement Mixtures for Different Cement Dosages

Soil-Cement mixtures are artificially structured materials with stable fabric due to the presence of artificial bonds. This type of materials is used in several geotechnical applications such as in pavement base layers in transportation infrastructures. In this paper artificially cemented silty sands are studied adopting dosages of 10% and 13% of Portland cement (by weight of dry soil). In order to analyze the impact of the molding water content in the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) of the mixtures through time, the mixtures were prepared for water to cement ratios varying between 0.6 and 2.0 and tested for different curing periods (3, 7, 14 and 28 days). UCS test results are interpreted considering the presence of bonds connecting the grains. The definition of a bonding parameter is adopted aiming to quantify the improvements achieved for the different cases investigated and considering curing periods.