Investigation of usabilty of diatomite with lime in soil stabilization

Soils do not always have the properties suitable for their intended use. In these cases, many methods are used to treat soil properties. One of these methods, which may differ according to the soil type and the desired treatment purpose, is the additive soil stabilization with natural pozzolans. Diatomite can be considered as a pozzolan because of its high SiO2 content. However, due to the lack of active CaO content, it has little cementous ability. Therefore, in order for cementation reactions to occur, diatomite should be used together with primary binders such as lime. In order to investigate the usability of diatomite together with lime in soil stabilization, in this study carried out on 8 different mixtures containing 0%, 5%, 10% and 20% diatomite with 6% slaked lime (the optimum lime content) or without lime, the changes caused by diatomit and lime additives in Atterberg limits, compaction parameters, after 1, 7, 28 days of curing and freeze-thaw cycle, unconfined compressive strength of the soil were investigated. In the results of the tests, it was observed that the use of diatomite addictive together with lime resulted in significant increases in unconfined compressive strength of the soil. it was determined that the lime-added soil mixture containing 5% diatomite reached the highest strength after 28 days of curing. As for lime-free soils, diatomite additive had no remarkable effects on strength. After the freeze-thaw cycle, 5%~20% strength losses were experienced in lime-added soil mixtures containing diatomite.