Strength Characteristics of Lime Stabilized Subgrade Soils

Availability of sound road aggregates is rare and costly nowadays due to rapid growth in the pavement construction activity to meet the increasing demand due to infrastructure development. Construction of pavement requires large quantity of earth material. Most of the time flexible pavements are required to be constructed over poor subgrade having problematic soil which leads to more thickness of the pavement. Lime stabilization of subgrade soil as a long and successful history in pavement construction industry and it can be effectively utilized for improving the engineering properties of the weak soil. The present investigation was carried out to study the effect of lime stabilization on Maximum Dry Density, Optimum Moisture Content and California Bearing Ratio of the subgrade soils. Two types of soil; namely Soil A (Clayey soil) and Soil B (Silty gravel Sand) are stabilized with hydrated lime using different percentages varying from 1.5 to 6 percent at the step of 1.5 percent by dry weight of soil. The result shows that the 4 days soaked CBR value of sub grade soils considerably increase due to addition of lime. The maximum increase in CBR value in both soils is found at 4.5 % of lime content.