Characterizing the Ductility of Portland Cement Stabilized Soil

Portland cement, lime, and fly-ash stabilized soils are often used as base materials in pavement. The ductility of these materials has a large impact on the performance and life of the pavement. Increasing the ductility of these materials, without decreasing the stiffness will result in materials that will experience less degradation over time, resulting in better performance and longer life. However, unlike bitumen cemented materials (D113-07), there is not currently any method to characterize the ductility of Portland cement, lime, or fly-ash cemented materials (Portland Cement Association, 1992), (NCHRP, 1976). Cementitious materials such as soil-cement and plastic concrete are also used for groundwater cutoffs and excavation support in many transportation applications as well as dam and levee mitigation. Material ductility is also important in many of these applications to deal with post-construction deformation of these structures (Kahl et. al, 1991), (Rice and Duncan, 2010). The first step to evaluating the effect of ductility in cemented base is to have a measure of ductility. Ductility and brittleness in cementitious materials is controlled by the presence or absence of cracks or fissures during straining. Cracks, micro-cracks and fissures also have a large effect on other easy to measure engineering properties. Two of these properties are damping and permeability. A ductility index can be developed by measuring changes in damping or permeability with strain. With an easy to measure and replicate ductility index, comparisons can be made between the ductility of different materials, and the effect of ductility on long-term behavior can be studied.

Language

  • English

Project

  • Status: Active
  • Funding: $101936
  • Contract Numbers:

    DTRT13-G-UTC38

  • Sponsor Organizations:

    Research and Innovative Technology Administration

    University Transportation Centers Program
    1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
    Washington, DC  United States  20590
  • Managing Organizations:

    Mountain-Plains Consortium

    North Dakota State University
    Fargo, ND  United States  58108
  • Project Managers:

    Tolliver, Denver

  • Performing Organizations:

    Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

    Utah State University
    Logan, UT  United States 
  • Principal Investigators:

    Bay, James

    Rice, John

  • Start Date: 20150609
  • Expected Completion Date: 20190930
  • Actual Completion Date: 0
  • USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program
  • Source Data: MPC-477

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01579594
  • Record Type: Research project
  • Source Agency: Mountain-Plains Consortium
  • Contract Numbers: DTRT13-G-UTC38
  • Files: UTC, RIP
  • Created Date: Oct 24 2015 1:36PM