Improving Geotechnical Properties of Dune Sands through Cement Stabilization

Abstract

When designing and constructing highways or more generally any super structures on dune sands type of soil, it is essential to make sure that the foundation soil is stable and provides good support to the applied loads. Dune sands soil are known to spread in huge areas throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in which thousands of miles of new roads and highways are being constructed every year. Replacing such kind of weak soil is not an economically feasible alternative since it is very costly; besides, the replacement soil is not always available in nearby sites. This study discusses the possibility of dune sands soil stabilization using Portland cement as the stabilizing agent. Various ratios of cement content mixed with dune sands are used to examine the improvement of engineering properties of dune sands in terms of strength characteristics, and shear strength parameters. The results indicate that mixing dune sands with cement stabilizing agents would influence the engineering properties of treated soil. It is determined that the cement stabilization of dune sands improves the strength characteristics of the treated soil so that it becomes usable as a base material for roads construction and proper foundation material for other types of super structures. It was also determined that a cement content more than 9% may not probably cause any additional improvement for the stabilized soil. A suggested relationship is introduced to predict the values of initial tangent elastic modulus for such type of cement-treated dune sands.