Effects of Soil Plasticity Index on physical properties of soil-cement

Soil cement is a mixture of Portland cement, soil and water, in which hydration of cement and compaction causes the materials’ constituents to bond together making a dense and durable composition with low permeability and abrasion resistant. Since most of the recent researches are focused on the addition of nano-SiO۲ on concrete, in this paper it has been attempted to use nano-SiO۲ particles in soil-cement and observe the effects. The test procedure consists of moisture-dry density, unconfined compressive test and hydraulic conductivity. In these tests, silica fume, nano-SiO۲ were added to soil-cement with different plasticity index (PI). The results show that adding certain amounts of nano-SiO۲ particles to the soil-cement matrix can improve the compressive strength and reduce permeability and speed hydration reactions in the matrix in presence of nano-SiO۲ particles.

Keywords:

Soil-Cement , Nanosilica , physical properties , Plasticity Index.