Fracture behaviour of Cement Treated Sandy Clay

¹ Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Cawangan Pulau Pinang, 13500 Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia
² Department of Mathematical Sciences and Computer, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Cawangan Pulau Pinang 13500 Permatang Pauh, Pulau Pinang, Malaysia

^a Corresponding author: ngkokshien@uitm.edu.my

Abstract

Addition of cement into soft soil has been proven to be useful in stabilizing the foundation. However, some failure cases are found related to this type of technique, especially involving the tensile failure of cement column as retaining structure. As we know, tensile strength of soil is important in controlling the cracking and tensile failure of many earth structures. This paper aims to investigate the fracture behaviour of cement treated sandy clay in terms of its compressive and tensile strength as well as its strain response under applied stress. Three laboratory testing namely the unconfined compression test (UCT), split tensile test (STT) and three-point bending test (TPBT) were conducted in this study. Cement content and curing period are the two main variables in the present study. The results of UCT showed the brittleness of the cement treated soil increased as the cement content and curing period increased. The unconfined compressive strength can be well correlated with the tensile strength obtained from STT and TPBT where the correlation factors were found to be 0.11 for both tests. Crushing mode is dominant in samples with high cement content and long curing period.