February 2018, Volume 5, Issue 2 JETIR (ISSN-2349-5162)

Study on Cement Stabilized Base and Sub-base Courses of

Flexible Pavements
1
G Narendra Goud,2 K Swetha,3 T Naveen Kumar, 4 T Adithya Sharma, 5 S Swathi
1
Assistant.Professor, 2 Assistant.Professor,,3 Assistant.Professor,4Assistant.Professor, 5 Assistant.Professor
1
Department of Civil Engineering
1
MVSR Engineering College, Hyderabad, India 501510

Abstract— Conventional pavement base or subbase layers may be stabilized with cementitious additives to improve the performance of
pavement or to reduce the premature failures in pavements. The cemented material used as base/subbase layer can impart extra fatigue
life to a pavement. Latest guidelines on flexible pavement design given by Indian Road Congress (IRC) 37-2012 provides the scope to
incorporate acement stabilized base or sub-base courses in flexible pavements, however, use of these pavements in practice is limited due
to lack of awareness about the advantages and competent equipment to ensure construction quality. In the present study, conventional
flexible pavement base layer materials are characterized and designed. Cement stabilized base and sub-base layer materials are
characterized and cement content is decided in accordance with the specifications. A flexible pavement with a selected subgrade soil,
traffic level using conventional base and sub-base layers is designed also a flexible pavement with cement stabilized base and sub-base
layers are designed using available guidelines. Layer thicknesses are designed keeping fatigue and rutting criteria within the allowable
limits. Layer thickness reduction in case of cement stabilized pavement in comparison with conventional pavement for same service life
is determined for various cases under consideration.

IndexTerms— flexible pavement, cement treated sub-base, cement treated base, pavement thickness reduction.

I. INTRODUCTION
When pavement fails early or prematurely, it’s usually a result of general soil issues, localized soil issues, poor drainage conditions
especially during rainy seasons or poor fabrication and engineering of thepavement structure. Most of the practicing engineers are conversant
with conventional pavements with unbound base and sub-base courses in flexible pavements which makes use of the good quality aggregate
in large quantities. Load distribution through particle contact points in the layered system is the main characteristic of the flexible pavements
and conventionally need huge thickness layers to distribute vehicle load and sustain failures. According to Indian Road Congress manual on
the design of flexible pavement structure, the quantity of crushed aggregates for granular base and subbase layers alone varies from 75% to
88% corresponding. It is paramount to reduce the quantity of aggregates in the construction of a flexible pavement base or subbase layers to
build sustainable flexible pavements. Francois 2016[3] found that conventional pavement base or subbase layers may be stabilized with
cementitious additives to improve the fatigue performance of pavement or to reduce the premature failures. Stabilizing with cement and
improving the subgrade soil, sub-base, and base in many situations can result in better performance or reduced material consumption with
same performance. In a study by Phatangare 2017 [7]concludes the difference of cost of construction by conventional method and
CTB/CTSB method is about Rs.2390024/- for a 1 Km long7.5 m wide road. A case study reported by Prasad 2016 [8] on cement treated base
course pavement for NH 50 project concludes that a saving in construction cost of Rs.15 lakh per km along with other advantages.

II. FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS AND SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS

Sustainable road transport infrastructure includes sustainable durable pavements – with a life cycle of more than 40 years; robust pavements
– disaster resistant, without major degradation and loss of functionality and with low environmental impact.The sustainable pavement can be
defined as a safe, efficient and environmentally friendly pavement that meets the needs of present-day users without compromising those of
future generations. In essence, this is a pavement that has fewer maintenance demands and longer time between major rehabilitation
interventions.Some of the strategies for improving thesustainability of a pavement is by selecting locally available lower quality material
with engineered treatment for construction, reduce percentage use of virgin asphalt binder & aggregate and reduce materials transportation.

III. TECHNIQUES WITH A POTENTIAL TO REDUCE AGGREGATE CONSUMPTION IN PAVEMENTS

Soft subgrade and medium subgrade needs more pavement layer thickness in comparison with that of a pavement with firm subgrades, which
is the reason for recommending highways to construct with subgrade having CBR more than 8%. When soft subgrade is encountered in the
field, to improve the CBR or to reduce the pavement layer thicknesses, some of the techniques one can employ are as follows a) lime
stabilization of subgrade, b) cement stabilization of subgrade c) mechanical stabilization of subgrade with geotextile in combination with
geogrid d) granular base reinforcement with geogrid e) granular base reinforcement with geocell f) basal reinforcement with geocell and
geogrid g) providing bitumen stabilised base courses in place of untreated base courses h) providing cement stabilised base courses in place
of untreated base courses. IRC 37 2012 [4] provides guidelines to design flexible pavements with subgrade CBR up to 15%, cement treated
base or sub-base and bitumen treated base or sub-base however it does not provide any guidelines to design a pavement with geocell, geogrid
or combination thereof.

IV. FLEXIBLE PAVEMENT LAYERS AND CEMENT TREATED LAYERS

Subgrade soil is an integral part of the road pavement structure as it provides the support to the pavement. The main function of the subgrade
is to give adequate support to the pavement structure and for this, the subgrade should possess sufficient stability under adverse climatic and
loading conditions. The different pavement failures such as waves, corrugations, ruts, cracks, etc. manifest in the road pavements are mainly
due to poor subgrade soil conditions. The subgrade soil should, therefore be prepared to the required profile, well compacted and stabilized
so as to prevent these defects and to keep the road pavement stable and serviceable for a longer period. The sub-base course is the layer of
material beneath the base course and the primary functions are to provide structural support, improve drainage, and reduce the intrusion of
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February 2018, Volume 5, Issue 2 JETIR (ISSN-2349-5162)

fines from the sub-grade intothe pavement structure. If the base course is open graded, then the sub-base course with more fines can serve as
a filter between sub-grade and the base course. A sub-base course is not always needed or used. For example, a pavement constructed over a
high quality, stiff sub-grade may not need the additional features offered by a sub-base course. In such situations, sub-base course may not be
provided. The base course and sub-base are structuralelements of the pavement, along with theoverlying asphaltlayers, their purpose is to
distributetraffic wheel loads over the whole foundation. Figure 1 presents pavement layers that are commonly used and also alternatively
cement treated layers. Availability of cement in bags, often in bulk is not a problem in the market with the presence of many manufacturing
units world-wide. The cost of cement is inexpensive relative to bitumen and is highly durable, quite weather resistant and strong. Cement can
be spread by manually in the absence of bulk spreaders or slurry units. Cement is well-known in the construction industry and the standard
test methods and specifications are usually available.

Figure- 1Different layers of flexible pavement

V. CHALLENGES IN CONSTRUCTION OF CEMENT STABILIZED PAVEMENT LAYERS

Uniform spreading of cement over the material to be treated and obtaining homogeneous mix manually is a challenge however in recent
times with the access to the very good quality and ergonomic world class machinery at an affordable price makes it face with ease, provided
the agency has the awareness and willingness to use its benefits. The quantity of water must be sufficient for hydration of cement and
making the mixture workable and to ensure this requirement, the addition of water to the mix through motorized and metered water spraying
systems available in the industry. Cracks may form in soil cement or cement treated base and shrinkage cracking is unavoidable. However, it
can be minimized [1]. Cement-treated layers requires proper curing and protection from early trafficking, particularly heavy slow-moving
vehicles. The addition of cement reduces the water permeability. The coefficient of permeability (K) value decreases from 8.36x10 -5 cm/s to
3.02x10-5 cm/s when the cement content increased from 0% to 6% [5] ,however, its strength to sustain load can offset the permeability
restraints.

VI. EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM

In the present study, two types of aggregate blends are prepared for sub-base and base in accordance with the requirements of specifications
provided in MORTH 2013 [6]. Aggregates and crushed stone dust are blended in suitable proportions to meet the graduation requirements.
Amount of cement contents for base and sub-base is selected as 3% and 5% to mix with the selected blend respectively, to meet minimum
cement content of 1.5% and strength requirements.

VII. GRADATION LIMITS AND GRAIN SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF BASE AND SUB-BASE MATERIAL FOR STABILIZATION WITH CEMENT
The aggregate blends for sub-base and base layers for cement treatment are selected meeting gradation limits provided by MORTH, table 1
provides the gradation limits. Figure 2 presents the gradation curves of the base and sub-base materials.

Table- 1 Gradation limits for sub-base and base course layers of cement treated material as per MORTH specifications [6]
IS Sieve Cumulative percent passing by weight
Size, mm Sub-base Base
53.0 100 100
37.5 95 95-100
19.0 45 45-100
9.5 35 35-100
4.75 25 25-100
0.6 8 8-65
0.3 5 5-40
0.075 0 0-10

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February 2018, Volume 5, Issue 2 JETIR (ISSN-2349-5162)
100
90
Sub-base
Base

Percent by mass passing (%)

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0.1 1 10 100
Sieve size (mm)
Figure- 2 Gradation curves of aggregate mixes of base and sub-base used for cement treatment

VIII. WATER CONTENT AND DRY UNIT WEIGHT RELATION

The graded blend of aggregate for base and sub-base are batched to determine optimum water content and dry unit weight. Modified Proctor
compaction effort [2]was applied by considering maximum size of particles present in both the mixes. The optimum water content and the
maximum dry unit weight found to be 5.6% and 23.2 kN/cu.m,7% and 22.8 kN/cu.m for sub-base course and base course materials
respectively.

24.0
Sub-base
23.5 Base
Dry unit weight (kN/cu.m)

23.0

22.5

22.0

21.5

21.0
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Water content (%)

Figure- 3 Variation of dry unit weight with water content for base and sub-base aggregate mixes

IX. CEMENT CONTENT AND UCS

The strength of stabilized materials can be evaluated in many ways, of which most popular is the unconfined compressive strength (UCS)
test. The UCStestwasconducted on a set of three cylindrical specimenshaving 150 mm diameter and 300 mm height for both the base and
sub-base materials after curing for seven days. The mean UCS value of base course material treated with 5% cement content equal to 7.35
MPa and the mean UCS value of sub-base course material treated with 3% cement content equal to 2.01 MPa. And both the values observed
to be more than the minimum required UCS value of 1.5 MPa in accordance with the 5 th revision of MORTH 2013 [6].The laboratory-based
E value is given by the following equation:

( ) (1)
Where UCS = 28-day strength of the cementitious granular material

Equation (1) gives a value in the range of 2000 to 7350 MPa. Since the sub-base acts as a platform for the heavy construction traffic, low
strength cemented sub-base is expected to crack during the construction and a design value of 600 MPa is recommended for the stress
analysis. Poisson’s ratio may be taken as 0.25 [4].

Figure -4 Cylindrical specimen prepared for UCS testing

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February 2018, Volume 5, Issue 2 JETIR (ISSN-2349-5162)

X. FLEXIBLE PAVEMENTS WITH AND WITHOUT CEMENT TREATED LAYERS

Granular soils with sufficient fines are ideally suited for cement stabilization as it requires theleast amount of cement. Soil-cement reduces
the swelling characteristics of the soil. It is commonly used for stabilizing sandy and other low plasticity soils. Cement interacts with the silt
and clay fractions and reduces their affinity for water. The use of cement stabilized bases, such as soil-cement, cement treated aggregate
base, or full-depth recycling actually reduces the occurrence of failure-related cracking. Fatigue cracking, with its typical “alligator” pattern,
is decreased because the stiff, stabilized base reduces vertical deflection and tensile strain in the asphalt surface. The base failure, and
resultant cracking and potholes is decreased because cement stabilization helps to keep moisture out of the base and improves base material
performance in saturated or freezing conditions. Subgrade failure is decreased because cement-stabilized bases spread traffic loads over wide
areas and can span weak subgrade locations.
To study and quantify the potential reduction in pavement thickness of flexible pavement the three different subgrade CBR values of 3%,
5%, and 15% are selected to include extreme types of subgrades, and the two types of traffic 30 MSA and 50 MSA selected. Two types of
pavements, one with conventional layers such as granular sub-base (GSB), granular base (GB), dense graded bituminous macadam (DBM)
and bituminous concrete (BC)and the other one with cement treated layers such as cement treated sub-base (CTSB) and cement treated base
(CTB) are designed using the guidelines provided in IRC 37-2012 [4]to compare the layer thicknesses. Layer thicknesses are designed
keeping fatigue and rutting criteria within the allowable limits. The reduction in total pavement thickness is computed as the ratio of the
difference in total thickness of conventional pavement and cement treated pavement, and thetotal thickness of conventional pavement
expressed in percentage. Table 2 and Table 3 provides the layer thickness of two types of pavements with conventional layers and cement
treated layers for a traffic of 30 MSA and 50 MSA respectively. It is observed that in case of a pavement with a subgrade CBR of 3% and 30
MSA traffic, 33.3% reduction in pavement layer thickness is possible when cement treated layers are used. In case of a pavement with
subgrade CBR 15% and 50 MSA traffic, the reduction in pavement thickness possible is only 6.3%.

Table- 2 Layer thicknesses of conventional and cement treated pavements to meet a traffic of 30 MSA
Layer type Conventional pavement layer Pavement base and sub-base treated
thicknesses, mm with Cement layer thicknesses, mm
Subgrade CBR, % 3 5 15 3 5 15
GSB 380 300 200 --- --- ---
CTSB --- --- --- 250 250 250
CTB --- --- --- 140 130 90
GB 250 250 250 100 100 100
DBM 140 120 65
BC 40 40 40 50 50 50
Total pavement thickness 810 710 555 540 530 490
Reduction in total pavement
33.3 25.4 11.7
thickness, %

Table- 3 Layer thicknesses of conventional and cement treated pavements to meet a traffic of 50 MSA
Layer type Conventional pavement layer Pavement base and sub-base treated with
thicknesses, mm Cement layer thicknesses, mm
Subgrade CBR, % 3 5 15 3 5 15
GSB 380 300 200 --- --- ---
CTSB --- --- --- 250 250 250
CTB --- --- --- 100 90 70
GB 250 250 250 100 100 100
DBM 135 115 65 50 50 50
BC 40 40 40 50 50 50
Total pavement thickness 805 705 555 550 540 520
Reduction in total pavement 31.7 23.4 6.3
thickness, %

XI. CONCLUSIONS
MeanUCS of base course material treated with 5% cement content equal to 7.35 MPa and the mean UCS of sub-base course material treated
with 3% cement content equal to 2.01 MPa.
The reduction in total pavement thickness found to be about 30% for the pavements with cement-treated base and subbase layers in
comparison with that of a pavement with conventional granular base and sub-base layers having a subgrade CBR of 3% and traffic range of
30 to 50 MSA. And the reduction is significantly less i.e about 6% to 10% only in case of the pavement with subgrade CBR 15%.
Acknowledgments
Authors would like to thank the head-civil engineering department and Principal of MVSR Engineering College, Hyderabad, for the
encouragement and support to carryout research work and publish the same. Thanks are due to the final year BE civil students J Sai Kumar
Reddy, P Sharath, for their efforts to conduct experiments in the laboratory.

REFERENCES
[1] Adaska, W. S., &Luhr, D. R. (2004). Control of Reflective Cracking in Cement Stabilized Pavements. In 5th International RILEM
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[3] Francois, A. A. (2016). Evaluating the impact of different types of stabilized bases on the overall performance of flexible
pavements. Rowan University MS thesisRowan University
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