Quantitative evaluation of microstructure characteristics of cement consolidated soil.

The organic content of a soil inhibits the effectiveness of cement stabilization. The study tested the use of various admixtures with cement to assess their effect on the size of the granules created and the size of the pores, using SEM imagery and a WD-5 image processing system to determine the shape parameters of structure units and pores. The results show that different admixtures play different roles in the stabilization process. Although the samples with cement and an accelerator and cement with aluminium sulfate were effective, the most improvement was achieved with cement plus crystal calcium sulfate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]