UNIT 3

Soil-Cement
Soil-cement is a highly compacted mixture of soil/aggregate, cement, and water. It is
widely used as a low-cost pavement base for roads, residential streets, parking
areas, airports, shoulders, and materials-handling and storage areas. Its advantages
of great strength and durability combine with low first cost to make it the outstanding
value in its field. A thin bituminous surface is usually placed on the soil-cement to
complete the pavement.

Soil-cement is sometimes called cement-stabilized base, or cement-treated

aggregate base. Regardless of the name, the principles governing its composition
and construction are the same.

What Type of Soil is Used?

The soil material in soil-cement can be almost any combination of sand, silt, clay,
gravel, or crushed stone. Local granular materials, such as slag, caliche, limerock,
and scoria, plus a wide variety of waste materials including cinders, fly ash, foundry
sands, and screenings from quarries and gravel pits, can all be utilized as soil
material. Old granular-base roads, with or without bituminous surfaces, can also be
reclaimed to make great soil-cement.

How is Soil-Cement Built?

Before construction begins, simple laboratory tests establish the cement content,
compaction, and water requirements of the soil material to be used. During
construction, tests are made to see that the requirements are being met. Testing
ensures that the mixture will have strength and long-term durability. No guesswork is
involved.

Soil-cement can be mixed in place or in a central mixing plant. Central mixing plants
can be used where borrow material is involved. Friable granular materials are
selected for their low cement requirements and ease of handling and mixing.
Normally pugmill-type mixers are used. The mixed soil-cement is then hauled to the
jobsite and spread on the prepared subgrade.

Compaction and curing procedures are the same for central-plant and mixed-in-place
procedures.

There are four steps in mixed-in-place soil-cement construction; spreading cement,

mixing, compaction, and curing. The proper quantity of cement is spread on the in-
place soil material. Then the cement, the soil material, and the necessary amount of
water are mixed thoroughly by any of several types of mixing machines. Next, the
mixture is tightly compacted to obtain maximum benefit form the cement. No special
compaction equipment is needed; rollers of various kinds, depending on soil type,
can be used. The mixture is cemented permanently at a high density and the
hardened soil-cement will not deform or consolidate further under traffic.

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Curing, the final step, prevents evaporation of water to ensure maximum strength
development through cement hydration. A light coat of bituminous material is
commonly used to prevent moisture loss; it also forms part of the bituminous surface.
A common type of wearing surface for light traffic is a surface treatment of bituminous
material and chips .5- to .75-inch thick. For heavy-duty use and in severe climates a
1.5-inch asphalt mat is used.

Contractors bidding on soil-cement jobs know that construction will be relatively easy
and problem-free; weather delays rare; and reworking of completed sections
unnecessary.

Why use Soil-Cement?

Failing granular-base pavements, with or without their old bituminous mats, can be
salvaged, strengthened, and reclaimed as soil-cement pavements. This is an
efficient, economical way of rebuilding pavements. Since approximately 90 percent
percent of the material used is already in place, handling and hauling costs are cut to
a minimum. Many granular and waste materials from quarries and gravel pits can
also be used to make soil-cement; thus high-grade materials are conserved for other
purposes.

Highway and city engineers praise soil-cement’s performance, its low first cost, long
life, and high strength. Soil-cement is constructed quickly and easily – a fact
appreciated by owners and users alike.

How Does Soil-Cement Perform?

Soil-cement thicknesses are less than those required for granular bases carrying the
same traffic over the same subgrade. This is because soil-cement is a cemented,
rigid material that distributes loads over broad areas. Its slab-like characteristics and
beam strength are unmatched by granular bases. Hard, rigid soil-cement resists
cyclic cold, rain, and spring-thaw damage.

Old soil-cement pavements in all parts of the continent are still giving good service at
low maintenance costs. Soil-cement has been used in every state in the United
States and in all Canadian provinces. Specimens taken from roads show that the
strength of soil-cement actually increases with age; some specimens were four times
as strong as test specimens made when the roads were first opened to traffic. This
reserve strength accounts in part for soil-cement’s good long-term performance.

Is Soil-Cement Economical?

The cost of soil-cement compares favorably with that of granular-base pavement.

When built for equal load-carrying capacity, soil-cement is almost always less
expensive than other low-cost pavements. Economy is achieved through the use or
reuse of in-place or nearby borrow materials. No costly hauling of expensive,
granular-base materials is required; thus, both energy and materials are conserved.

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 Pavement Applications

Soil-cement pavements have many uses from city streets, county roads, state routes,
and interstate highways, to parking lots, industrial storage facilities, and airports. In
fact, the “family” of soil-cement pavement products can actually be divided up into
three main components – each with their own unique contribution to a pavement
structure. These components include Cement-Modified Soils (CMS), Cement-Treated
Base (CTB), and Full-Depth Reclamation (FDR). Click on product name below for
more information.

A road surface (British English), or pavement (American English), is the durable

surface material laid down on an area intended to sustain vehicular or foot traffic,
such as a road or walkway.
What are the types of pavement?

Types of Pavements - Flexible Pavement / Rigid Pavement

 Flexible pavement: Are those pavements which reflect the deformation of
subgrade and the subsequent layers to the surface.
 Rigid pavement: ...
 Flexible pavement: ...
 Rigid pavement: Definition. ...
 Advantages of Rigid Pavement.
Benefits of Concrete Pavements as Car Parking Slots

Good resistance to deformation. Both the parking-stall and the traffic lane can be
incorporated. Concrete pavement is less affected by the leaking oil and petroleum products
from the vehicle.

Types of Pavements - Flexible Pavement / Rigid Pavement

Following are the two main types of pavements:

1. Flexible pavement
2. Rigid pavement

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Flexible pavement:

Are those pavements which reflect the deformation of subgrade and the subsequent
layers to the surface.

Rigid pavement:

The rigid characteristic of the pavement are associated with rigidity or flexural
strength or slab action so the load is distributed over a wide area of subgrade soil.

Flexible pavement:
Definition

Flexible pavements are those pavements which reflect the deformation of subgrade
and the subsequent layers to the surface. Flexible, usually asphalt, is laid with no
reinforcement or with a specialized fabric reinforcement that permits limited flow or
repositioning of the roadbed under ground changes.

The design of flexible pavement is based on load distributing characteristic of the

component layers. The black top pavement including water & gravel bound macadam
fall in this category.

Flexible pavement on the whole has low or negligible flexible strength flexible in
their structural action). The flexible pavement layers transmit the vertical or
compressive stresses to the lower layers by grain transfer through contact points of
granular structure.

The vertical compressive stress is maximum on the pavement surface directly under
the wheel load and is equal to contact pressure under the wheels. Due to the ability
to distribute the stress to large area in the shape of truncated cone the stresses get
decreased in the lower layer.

As such the flexible pavement may be constructed in a number of layers and the top
layer has to be strongest as the highest compressive stresses.

To be sustained by this layer, in addition to wear and tear, the lower layer have to
take up only lesser magnitude of stress as there is no direct wearing action due to
traffic loads. Therefore, inferior material with lower cast can be used in the lower
layers.

Rigid pavement: Definition

The rigid characteristic of the pavement are associated with rigidity or flexural
strength or slab action so the load is distributed over a wide area of subgrade soil.
Rigid pavement is laid in slabs with steel reinforcement.

The rigid pavements are made of cement concrete either plan, reinforced
or prestressed concrete.

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 Critical condition of stress in the rigid pavement is the maximum flexural stress
occurring in the slab due to wheel load and the temperature changes.

Rigid pavement is designed and analyzed by using the elastic theory.

Advantages of Rigid Pavement

1. Rigid lasts much, much longer i.e 30+ years compared to 5-10 years of flexible
pavements.

2. In the long run it is about half the cost to install and maintain. But the initial
costs are somewhat high.

3. Rigid pavement has the ability to bridge small imperfections in the subgrade.

4. Less Maintenance cost and Continuous Traffic and Flow.

5. High efficiency in terms of functionality

Comparison of Flexible and Rigid Types of Pavements

1. Deformation in the sub grade is

1. Deformation in the sub grade is not
transferred to the upper layers
transferred to subsequent layers
2. Design is based on load
2. Design is based on flexural strength
distributing characteristics of the
or slab action
component layers
3. Have high flexural strength
3. Have low flexural strength
4. No such phenomenon of grain to
4. Load is transferred by grain to
grain load transfer exists
grain contact
5. Have low repairing cost but
5. Have low completion cost but
completion cost is high
repairing cost is high
6. Life span is more as compare to
6. Have low life span
flexible
7. Surfacing cannot be laid directly on
7. Surfacing can be directly laid on the
the sub grade but a sub base is
sub grade
needed
8. Thermal stresses are more
8. No thermal stresses are induced
vulnerable to be induced as the
as the pavement have the ability to
ability to contract and expand is
contract and expand freely
very less in concrete
9. Thats why expansion joints are not
9. That's why expansion joints are
needed
needed
10. Strength of the road is highly
10. Strength of the road is less
dependent on the strength of the
dependent on the strength of the
sub grade
sub grade
11. Rolling of the surfacing is needed
11. Rolling of the surfacing in not
12. Road can be used for traffic within
needed
24 hours
12. Road cannot be used until 14 days
13. Force of friction is less
of curing
Deformation in the sub grade is not
13. Force of friction is high
transferred to the upper layers.