Bearing capacity of strip footing on lime stabilized expansive clayey soil

Abstract EN

To investigate and understand the effect of lime on the engineering properties of an expansive clayey soil, 4% lime by weight of the dry soil have been added.

The stabilized soil specimens were subjected to unconfined compression, swelling potential and pH value tests.

Also, a finite element analyses using PLAXIS-2D software were conducted.

The studied parameters include the footing size and thickness of lime stabilized soil, and then compared with the natural soil.

It was proved that lime content and curing duration had a significant effect on the engineering properties of lime-treated soil.

The curing duration had significantly enhanced the strength properties of the lime stabilized soil specimens, where, unconfined compressive strength has significantly improved.

Also, the pH value was decreased with increasing curing durations.

Moreover, it was found that the swelling potential of the lime-treated soil specimens was reduced by lime addition and increasing of the curing duration.

The results of numerical analysis show that the stress-settlement behaviour and ultimate bearing capacity of footing can be considerably enhanced as the thickness of lime-treated increases, and the influence of footing width seems to be insignificant.