Isotropic yielding in an artificially cemented soil cured under stress

The work simulates, in the laboratory, the formation of a cemented sedimentary deposit in which cement bonding occurs after burial and under geostatic stresses. Isotropic compression tests were carried out on artificially cemented specimens made with variable cement contents. After consolidating the samples to the uncemented normal compression line, the specimens were allowed to cure for 48 h before testing. The curing confining stresses ranged from 50 to 2000 kPa, and were intended to represent soil elements at different depths in the fictitious sedimentary deposit when the cementing occurred. The contribution of the cement bonds to soil compression and the changes in the isotropic yield stress as a function of void ratio and cement content were analysed. The results showed the importance of the void ratio during the formation of cement bonds and also of the degree of cementation for the compressive behaviour of the cemented soil, and demonstrated that the variation in yield stress with void ratio and cement content is dependent on the curing stress and independent of the stress history.