LIME TREATED CLAY: SALIENT ENGINEERING PROPERTIES AND A CONCEPTUAL MODEL

摘要

In order to study stress-strain-strength and yielding characteristics of lime treated clay, an extensive testing program was conducted on lime treated clay. It was found that the main effect of lime treatment was to change the soft clay from normally consolidated to overconsolidated behavior. Heavily overconsolidated characteristics were observed for stress states inside the volumetric yield locus obtained from anisotropic consolidation tests. The volumetric yield loci of lime treated clays were found to be more pronounced than distortional or strain path yield locus. Outside the volumetric yield locus, the behavior was found to consist of an initial pseudo-elastic phase followed by a stage where the behavior appears to be similar to that of a work-hardening plastic material as the stress path proceeds towards the curved failure envelopes. The treated clays strain-softened after failure with the residual stress states lying close to the critical state line of the untreated clay. A conceptual model to describe the behavior of lime treated clay is introduced, in which the presence of distortional yield locus shifts with lime content and curing time.