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Lime treatment of plastic clays with special focus on triaxial extension behaviour

par Kan, Kuchvichea
Président du jury Bouillard, Philippe
Promoteur Francois, Bertrand
Co-Promoteur Chea, Savuth
Publication Non publié, 2020-10-13

Thèse de doctorat

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Résumé :

Clay soils can be stabilized by the chemical reaction between the clay particles and lime to produce calcium aluminate and calcium silicate minerals. This cementation effect on clay particles result in increasing the strength of lime-treated clay soils. The mechanical strengths (compressive, tensile and shear strengths) of clay soils are improved from soft to stiff behavior by treating with lime and evolve along the curing time.An extensive experimental investigation has been carried out using laboratory reconstituted (compacted) expansive soils, covering a range of plasticity indices. Four selected soils with different fundamental physical and mechanical behaviors have been used to stabilize with lime. In addition to basic geomechanical characterization tests (modified proctor compaction, uniaxial compression strength, indirect tensile strength, oedometric compression, direct shear tests), a special focus was put on triaxial compression and extension tests upon drained and undrained conditions. Also, the development of swelling pressure upon wetting was also carefully investigated.The shear behavior of compacted clay soils is experimentally investigated by using both direct shear test and triaxial shear tests. These tests were conducted on saturated specimens for four selected soils. It is observed that the shear strength of both tests is evolving with addition of lime and with the plasticity index. In addition to the strength parameters, triaxial shear test was also used to determine the Young modulus of treated soils. It was noticed that the lime treatment increases the elastic modulus of selected clay soils.The triaxial compression system was modified to a triaxial extension system in order to evaluate the triaxial tensile strength of one of the tested soils (N1, from Quenast, Belgium). The pure tensile strength of soils can be determined from triaxial extension test at low confining pressures while high confining pressures induces shear failure.The failure criteria of lime-treated soils were studied in different stress planes to evaluate the shear and tensile strength obtained from triaxial extension test and triaxial compression test. A combined rupture criterion of original and modified Griffith criteria was applied. The results obtained from experimental testing have shown that at low confining pressures, the failure stress of extension test followed the Original Griffith Criterion started from pure tension, and at the higher confining pressures the failure stress followed the Modified Griffith (equivalent to Mohr-Coulomb, in this case).In application of this combined equation, the result of four selected soils obtained from triaxial tension test, direct shear test and triaxial compression test was plotted in the (sigma,to) in order to verify this equation. These experimental results match with the combined equation.This analysis revealed the strong interest of extension triaxial tests, with respect to more conventional indirect tension tests (also called splitting tests). Extension triaxial tests allow to control the drainage conditions and performed a full effective stress analysis of the stress-strain responses, including pre-failure behavior and ultimate strength criterion. Also, it provides a smooth transition between shear strength and tensile strength criterion, depending on the confining pressure of the test.At the end of this work, experimental results are analyzed and correlated with several parameters. Shear strength, compression index and swelling pressure were found to depend primarily on plasticity index for both treated and untreated materials. Many approaches in literature have also expressed these mechanical properties of soils in function of plasticity index. However, there are a few equations matching closely to testing results. For the development of swelling pressure upon wetting, a modified equation was proposed for experimental data for non-treated soils and lime-treated soils.