Strength performance of high-water content clays stabilized with cement and superabsorbent polymers

An ideal solution for dealing with large volumes of waste clays is to stabilize and use them as fill materials for road construction. This paper presents an experimental study on the strength behavior of the clays with high water content stabilized by cement and superabsorbent polymers (SAP) at different curing periods. The SAP can effectively improve the strength of cement soils, and the increase in strength becomes more significant with time. The microstructures of the stabilized soils are also investigated via mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and microcomputed tomography (Miro-CT). Comparison of the porosity and the pore size distribution of the stabilized soils shows clearly that the SAP facilitated the hydration/pozzolanic reaction through the absorption-release on free water. With this concept, free water, cement content, and curing period are considered as important parameters based on Abrams' law to characterize the strength of the cement-SAP-soil system.