Effects on engineering properties of cement-treated road base with slow setting bitumen emulsion

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of the type and amount of Portland cement and cationic slow setting bitumen emulsion additives on the short- and long-term performance of road-based properties using laboratory mechanistic evaluation. Stabilised specimens with Portland cement (0–6%) and bitumen emulsion (0–6%) were compacted, cured for 7, 28 and 60 days; and finally subjected to different stress sequences to study their unconfined compressive strength, indirect tensile resident modulus and indirect tensile strength tests. The durability of stabilised soil specimens was investigated by conducting wetting and drying (WD) cycling test on 7 days cured specimens. The results showed the added 4% portland cement–3% bitumen emulsion mix was ideal and produced a 179.4% reduction in the water absorption and permeability, 256.3% reduction in volume changes and 211.95% reduction in weight losses relative to a 4% cement sample. This paper presents the findings of a correlation that was conducted using non-linear regression analysis regarding the influences of the affected variables in order to establish models to predict the mixture strength parameters.

Keywords:

• Cationic slow setting
• bitumen emulsion
• durability
• performance
• models
• regression analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the Sustainable Urban Transport Research Centre (SUTRA), Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) for providing research facilities and we also appreciated the University of Malaya (UM) for experiments collaboration.