Establishing Relationships for Strength Characteristics of Lateritic Soils with Varying Silt Fractions

Design and construction of highway embankments constitute a major component of highway engineering science. Poor sub-grade strength, overloading due to traffic loads, and seismic vibrations can cause distress to pavement sub-grades and embankments. Inadequate compaction and poor sub soil drainage, in addition to low bearing strength of soils cause failure of embankments especially in submersible regions. The present study is focused on performing investigations on the engineering properties of lateritic and lithomargic soils and the effect of fines on soil strength. Tests such as California Bearing Ratio (CBR), tests for unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and tri-axial tests are carried to study the strength behavior of soil on addition of lithomargic soils. Additionally, the development of regressions will help field engineers in estimating the value of the CBR based on simple laboratory experiments such as Unconfined Compression strength test, and the Tri-axial test.