Flocculant effects on fluidity and strength behavior of cemented dredged clay with high water content
Guizhong Xu, Chengchun Qiu, Miaomiao Song, Yupeng Cao, Jie Yin
Abstract
The dredged clay (DC) could not be directly reutilized for its extra-high water content. So, the dewatering is needed before further improvement. At present, the commonly used self-weight sedimentation and natural air-drying are often difficult to meet the engineering requirements and time-consuming, thus chemical flocculants are used to improve the dewatering process for their excellent flocculation in recent years. In this study, the flocculant effects on the fluidity and strength behavior of cement-treated dredged clay, are investigated based on experimental results. For the dredged clay, its fluidity firstly increases with the increasing content of FeCl3 and Chitosan, and then reaches a stable value; while the addition of PAM would decrease its fluidity. Compared with the dredged clay, relatively small changes in the fluidity of solidified dredged clay are found with the addition of flocculants. The flocculant with a suitable dosage has an overall enhancement in the undrained strength of solidified soils. The flocculation of dredged clay/cemented clay induced by the flocculant is responsible for changes in the fluidity and undrained strength. For flocculants used in this study, the appropriate content corresponding to the target fluidity and maximum strength is in the range of 0.1% to 0.5%.