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Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions
Volume 7, Issue 5, October, 2015

Citation: Edil TB, Cetin B, 2015. Freeze-thaw performance of chemically stabilized natural and recycled highway materials. Sciences in Cold
and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491. DOI: 10.3724/SP.J.1226.2015.00482.

Freeze-thaw performance of chemically stabilized

natural and recycled highway materials

Tuncer B. Edil 1*, Bora Cetin 2

1. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
2. College of Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, 30602, USA

*Correspondence to: Tuncer B. Edil, Professor Emeritus of Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, 53706, USA. Tel: +1-608-262-3225; E-mail: tbedil@wisc.edu

Received: March 19, 2015 Accepted: May 29, 2015

ABSTRACT

This article provides an overview of several previous studies that investigated the stiffness and strength performance of
chemically stabilized roadway materials under winter conditions (freeze-thaw cycling). The objective of this research was
to understand the behavior of different materials stabilized with different type of binders when they were subjected to
freeze-thaw cycling. Nine different materials including natural soils (organic soil, clay, silt, sand, and road surface gravel),
reclaimed pavement material, and recycled asphalt pavement stabilized with nine different binders (five different fly ashes,
lime, cement, lime kiln dust, cement kiln dust) were discussed. This article investigated how the volume, resilient modulus
and unconfined compressive strength of soils/materials stabilized with different binders change in response to freeze-thaw
cycling. Overall, the review results indicate that the stiffness and strength of all stabilized materials decrease somewhat
with freeze-thaw cycling. However, the reduced strength and stiffness of stabilized materials after freeze-thaw cycling was
still higher than that of unstabilized-unfrozen original soils and materials. In addition, materials stabilized with cement kiln
dust provided the best performance against freeze-thaw cycling.
Keywords: freeze-thaw; soil stabilization; cement; fly ash; lime

1 Introduction
Increased development and its associated increase
in traffic and vehicle loads on highways require sig-
nificant upgrades to the roads at considerable expense.
There is a strong interest in developing effective,
convenient, and economic methods to upgrade these
roads. Conventionally, large volumes of earthen ma-
terials are used to replace the aged roadway structure
and rebuild the entire roadway infrastructure. Howev-
er, this approach is generally very costly and cause
environmental and ecological problems.
In many cases, conventional materials can be re-
placed with deteriorated pavement asphalt layer,
pavement materials, and industrial byproducts in-
cluding fly ash, cement kiln dust (CKD), lime kiln
dust (LKD), steel slag, and aged concrete pavements.
Recycling to utilize these materials in highway pave-
ment systems can generate cost savings to the public
while having significant environmental benefits in
terms of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and
energy consumption.
During the process of reconstructing a deteriorated
roadway, a large supply of potentially useful materials
could be conveniently located along the existing
roadway, leading to significant time and cost savings
relative to conventional total reconstruction costs.
These cost savings would result from less time and
expense spent on transportation and procurement of
new materials and the disposal of the old material.
 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491
Recycled pavement material (RPM), recycled as-
phalt pavement (RAP) and road surface gravel (RSG)
are three materials that can be reused as new base
course in road rehabilitation (Wen et al., 2004; Hati-
poglu et al., 2008; Li et al., 2008). Since RPM, RAP
and RSG may or may not perform as well as natural
high quality aggregates relative to strength, stiffness
and rutting potential, the addition of a stabilizing ma-
terial such as cement, fly ash, lime, LKD or CKD can
improve their properties due to cementation.
In addition to base layer stabilization, the stiffness
and strength of subgrade layers in roadway systems is
very important during construction and in improving
the overall performance of pavement structure. Pre-
vious studies show that the inclusion of cement, lime,
fly ash (Class C and/or F), LKD, and CKD binders is
very beneficial in improving the mechanical perfor-
mance of subgrade soils including sand, silt and clay
(Acosta et al., 2003; Arora and Aydilek, 2005; Edil et
al., 2006; Camargo, 2008; Cetin et al., 2010; Tastan et
al., 2011) and extend the service life.
A considerable amount of research has been de-
voted to the stabilization of fine-grained soils,
coarse-grained soils and recycled pavement materials
using different types of binders including fly ash, lime,
cement, LKD, and CKD in highway base/subgrade
applications, which demonstrated improvement in
strength, compressibility and stiffness. However, there
is a limited amount of research regarding how these
materials stabilized with fly ash behave after exposure
to winter conditions in the field.
The main objective of this study is to provide an
overview based on the results of the following studies,
Baugh (2008), Koostra (2009), Rosa (2009), Cetin et
al. (2010), and Su (2012). These studies investigated
the impact of winter conditions (freeze-thaw cycling)
Figure 1 Grain size distributions of (a) coarse-grained soils/materials and (b) fine-grained soils
483
on mechanical performance of chemically stabilized
soils and recycled materials. The particular objective
of this study is to summarize the volume change, re-
silient modulus (Mr) and unconfined compressive
strength (qu) of different types of soils (gravel, sand,
silt, clay) and recycled materials (RPM and RAP) that
are stabilized with different type of binders (Class C
fly ash, Class F fly ash, cement, lime, CKD, and LKD
subjected to freeze-thaw cycling.
2 Materials
Six different soils and three different recycled
materials were used in this study. These materials
include both fine-grained and coarse-grained soils.
Results relating to Lawson organic soil, reclaimed
pavement materials (RPM1 and RPM2), and RAP
were collected from Rosa (2009) while sand, silt,
and clay soils were collected from Su (2012). Road
surface gravels (RSG1 and RSG2) were collected
from Baugh (2008), Koostra (2009) and Cetin et al.
(2010), respectively. Figure 1 shows the grain size
distribution of all materials. The fines contents of
Lawson, silt, and slay soils were 97%, 60%, and
80%, respectively. The fines content of coarse-
grained soils and recycled materials were between
0.1% and 12%.
Index properties of all unstabilized materials are
summarized in Table 1. All of the soils, except clay,
and recycled materials did not possess any plasticity.
Soils were classified according to the Unified Soil
Classification System (USCS) and American Associa-
tion of State Highway and Transportation Officials
(AASHTO). Table 1 presents the classification of soils
and recycled materials discussed in this study and in-
dicates that it includes a wide range of materials.
484 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491

Nine different binders were used in these investi-
gations (Table 2). Five of these binders were different
fly ashes, including Columbia (Co), Riverside (Riv7),
King, Class F, and Paul Smith (PS). The other four
binders were cement, lime, LKD and CKD. Co, Riv7,
and King fly ashes had high CaO content (23.3%–
25.8% by weight) while PS and Class F fly ash had
low CaO content (0.7%–9.2%). This indicates that fly
ash possessing high CaO content pose a great poten-
tial to initiate cementation reactions in the presence of
moisture while other fly ashes need an activator that is
rich in CaO. These activators were lime, LKD and
CKD. CaO contents of LKD and CKD were 60% and
54%, respectively.

Table 1 Index properties of materials

wopt γdmax LL PI Gravel content Sand content Fines content Classification
Sample Gs
(%) (kN/m3) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%) USCS AASHTO
a
Lawson 2.58 27.0 13.0 50 19 –– 3.0 97.0 OH A-7-5
RPM1a –– –– 20.0 NP NP 34.0 54.0 12.0 SC A-1-a
RPM2a –– –– –– NP NP 30.0 63.0 7.0 SW-SC A-1-b
RAPa –– –– 19.0 NP NP 35.0 56.0 9.0 SW-SC A-1-b
Sandb 2.69 11.0 18.7 NP NP 2.1 97.8 0.1 SP A-1-b
Siltb 2.72 10.5 19.4 18 NP 3.0 37.0 60.0 ML A-4
Clayb 2.62 16.0 17.0 39 19 2.0 18.0 80.0 CL A-6
RSG1c 2.64 13.0 19.0 NP NP 30.0 67.0 3.0 SP A-1-b
RSG2d,e 2.73 7.5 23.0 NP NP 29.0 59.0 12.0 SC-SM A-2-4
Gs: Specific gravity; wopt: optimum water content; γdmax: maximum dry unit weight; LL: liquid limit; PL: plastic limit; NP:
nonplastic; RPM: reclaimed pavement material; RAP: recycled asphalt pavement; RSG: road surface gravel. a Rosa (2009),
b
Su (2012), c Cetin et al. (2010), d Koostra (2009), e Baugh (2008).

Table 2 Physical and chemical properties of the fly ashes (all oxides are in percentage by weight)
Physical and chemical properties
Suitability of fly ash for
Fly ash LOI SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO Classification
CaO/SiO2 CaO/Al2O3 pH stabilization ASTM
(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) ASTM C618
D5239
Columbiaa 0.7 31.0 18.0 6.0 23.0 0.8 1.3 14 C Very self cementing fly ash
Riverside7a 0.9 32.0 19.0 6.0 24.0 0.8 1.3 –– C Very self cementing fly ash
Kinga 12.0 24.0 15.0 6.0 26.0 1.1 1.0 11 Off-Spec Very self cementing fly ash
Class Fb 5.0 8.0 15.0 6.0 9.2 1.2 0.6 8 F Non-self cementing fly ash
PSc 11.0 51.0 27.0 5.5 0.7 0.014 0.014 6 Off-Spec Non-self cementing fly ash
a b c
LOI: loss on ignition. Rosa (2009), Su (2012), Cetin et al. (2010). PS=Paul Smith.

3 Methods cles without access to water.

Table 3 presents the legend and composition of
the mixtures discussed in the current study. These
mixtures include fine-grained soil-fly ash,
coarse-grained soil-fly ash, fine-grained soil-cement,
coarse-grained soil-cement, soil-fly ash-lime kiln dust
(LKD), soil-fly ash-lime, soil-lime, and soil-cement
kiln dust (CKD) mixtures. All soil-binder mixtures
were cured for seven days at room temperature (21±2
°C) and at 100% relative humidity before being sub-
jected to freeze-thaw cycles.
After seven days of curing, the specimens were
frozen in a temperature chamber at −5 to −20 °C for
24 hours and then thawed in a humidity chamber at
100% relative humidity and controlled temperature of
21 ± 2 °C for 24 hours. Each mixture was subjected to
different numbers of freeze-thaw cycles up to 12 cy-
3.1 Resilient modulus test
The procedures outlined in AASHTO T307-99
(2007), a protocol for testing highway base materials,
were followed for resilient modulus for all mixtures
that were used in this study to allow a common basis
for comparison. All specimens were compacted at
their optimum moisture contents (OMC) to maximum
dry unit weight corresponding to modified compac-
tion energy (ASTM D1557).
The resilient modulus of soil is usually nonlinear
and is dependent on the stress level. This nonlinear
behavior was defined in this study using the common
model developed by Moosazadh and Witczak (1981):
K2
M r = K1θ (1)
 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491 485

where, Mr is resilient modulus, K1 and K2 are constants,
θ (= σd + 3σc) is bulk stress where σc is the isotropic
confining pressure, and σd is the deviator stress. Mr was
computed at a bulk stress of 208 kPa, following the
guidelines provided in NCHRP 1-28A for base course
layer. For stabilized materials, the effect of confining
pressure in pavement layers is relatively small; how-
ever, unstabilized materials used are largely granular
and this model appropriately captures the effect of
bulk stress for such materials and was adopted to al-
low a common basis for comparison. Detailed infor-
mation regarding the resilient modulus procedures
followed in all studies summarized here can be found
in the following references of Baugh (2008), Koostra
(2009), Rosa (2009), Cetin et al. (2010), and Su (2012).
3.2 Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) tests
Unconfined compressive strength tests were
conducted in accordance with ASTM D5102 (2004).
In some cases, unconfined compressive strength tests
were performed on specimens subsequent to resilient
modulus testing. Load levels used in resilient modu-
lus testing were such that no apparent damage was
observed in the specimens. A strain rate of
0.21%/min was used during the shearing process.
Detailed information regarding the unconfined com-
pressive strength procedures followed in all studies
summarized here can be found in the following ref-
erences: Baugh (2008), Koostra (2009), Rosa (2009),
and Su (2012).

Table 3 Legend and composition of the mixtures

Soil type Legend of mixtures Binder type Binder content (%)
RPM1 + 10% Riv7 fly ash Riverside 7 fly ash 10.0
RPM2 + 10% Riv7 fly ash Riverside fly ash 10.0
RAP + 10% King fly ash King fly ash 10.0
Paul Smith fly ash 10.0
RSG1 + 10% PS + 2.5% LKD
Lime kiln dust 2.5
Coarse-grained Paul Smith fly ash 10.0
RSG1 + 10% PS + 5% LKD
soils/materials Lime kiln dust 5.0
Cement kiln dust 5.0
RSG2 + CKD Cement kiln dust 10.0
Cement kiln dust 15.0
Sand + 6% Cement Cement 6.0
Sand + 13% King fly ash C fly ash 13.0
Lawson + 20% Co fly ash Columbia fly ash 20.0
Silt + 8% Cement Cement 8.0
Clay + 12% Cement Cement 12.0
Fine-grained soils Silt + 13% King fly ash C fly ash 13.0
F fly ash 12.0
Silt + 12% F fly ash + 4% Lime
Lime 4.0
Clay + 6% Lime Lime 6.0
RPM: Reclaimed pavement material; RAP: Recycled asphalt pavement; RSG: Road surface gravel; Co: Columbia fly ash; Riv7:
Riverside fly ash; PS: Paul Smith fly ash, LKD: Lime kiln dust; CKD: Cement kiln dust.

4 Discussion higher than average sulfur content of this particular

4.1 Impact of freeze-thaw cycles on volume change
of chemically stabilized materials
The volume changes observed are summarized in
Table 4 for the Lawson-Co fly ash and RPM1 and
RPM2-Riv7 fly ash and RSG2-CKD mixtures at the
end of freeze-thaw cycling when specimens are com-
pletely thawed. These results indicate that specimens
containing CKD had higher volume change as com-
pared to the specimens mixed with Co and Riv7 fly
ashes (both Class C). The increase in volume of
specimens prepared with CKD is probably due to the
CKD, reported as SO3, which is 12.5% compared to
typical 6.0% for most CKDs.
Volume changes of fly ash stabilized materials
(Lawson, RPM1, and RPM2) are shown as a function
of freeze-thaw cycling in Figure 2. A general trend of
volume increase in response to freeze-thaw cycling is
observed for all mixtures. The maximum volume in-
crease was 2.7% for RPM after five freeze-thaw cy-
cles. Lawson-fly ash mixture, however, showed a
volume reduction after the first freeze-thaw cycle
thereafter the volume increased but still remained
lower than the volume of the specimen before
freeze-thaw cycling.
486 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491
Table 4 Volume change of specimens during freeze-thaw cycles
Specimen Binder type Binder content (%)
5 1.0
RSG+CKD Cement Kiln Dust 10
15
Lawson+20% Co Columbia Fly Ash 20
RPM1+ 10% Riv7 Riverside 7 Fly Ash 10
RPM2+ 10% Riv7 Riverside 8 Fly Ash 10
Co: Columbia; RPM1: Reclaimed pavement material 1; RPM2: Reclaimed pavement material 2; RSG: Road surface gravel;
CKD: Cement kiln dust.
Punthutaecha et al. (2006) determined volumetric
swell expansion above 5% to be problematic, espe-
cially for low overburden structures such as pave-
ments and embankments. Based on this criterion, the
results summarized in Table 4 and Figure 2 indicate
that the expansion associated with CKD, when its
content is more than 5%, could cause distress to
pavement structures while mixtures prepared with fly
ashes show acceptable volume change.
Figure 2 Volume change vs number of freeze-thaw cycles for
Lawson-fly ash, RPM1-fly ash and RPM2-fly ash mixtures
4.2 Impact of freeze-thaw cycles on resilient modulus
Stabilized highway construction materials should
be able to resist climatic stress, especially freeze-thaw
cycles (Cetin et al., 2010). Measuring specimen
strength after freeze-thaw (F-T) cycles and recording
the change in weight have been reported as indicators
of durability. However, the evaluation of durability by
weight loss as a result of freeze-thaw cycles (ASTM
D560) has been dropped by some state agencies as the
procedure is overly severe, and does not completely
simulate field conditions and perhaps applicable to
exposed concrete. Therefore, this study focuses on
impacts of freeze-thaw cycle on more relevant proper-
ties such as resilient modulus and unconfined com-
pressive strength.
Volume change (%) Final cycle
2
15.0 5
10.0 3
0.5 10
2.5 5
2.7 5
Figure 3 presents the impact of freeze-thaw cycles
on resilient modulus of materials stabilized with dif-
ferent binders (MrN) at N freeze-thaw cycles normal-
ized by resilient modulus without freeze-thaw cycling
(Mr0). For the fly ash stabilized mixtures presented in
Figure 3a, the normalized resilient modulus decreases
in response to freeze-thaw cycling and then levels off
in approximately 1 to 5 cycles. The resilient modulus
of these materials in Figure 3a decreased in the range
of 15% to 45%.
In Figure 3b, RSG stabilized with off-spec fly ash
and LKD shows slight decrease in Mr (3% to 10%)
after four cycles, and then starts decreasing drastically
when samples are subjected to 8 and 12 freeze-thaw
cycles with the maximum decrease of about 60%. The
largest rate of decrease of Mr was observed between
the fourth and eighth cycle. Similar trends were ob-
served for unbound materials by Simonsen et al.
(2002).
Figure 3c shows that modulus of RSG stabilized
with CKD at various dosages decreases with increas-
ing freeze-thaw cycles. The relative decrease in mod-
ulus due to freeze-thaw cycles increases with CKD
content, but maximum decrease in Mr over 10 cycles
was about 50%. These results are less than the 67.5%
decrease in modulus after eight cycles of freeze-thaw
found by Zaman et al. (1999).
The results observed in Figure 3 indicate that RAP
stabilized with King fly ash and RSG stabilized with
CKD possess superior stiffness performance under
harsh climatic conditions compared to other fly ash
mixtures.
4.2.1 Resilient modulus of stabilized materials af-
ter freeze-thaw cycles compared to the unfrozen
material without binder
In Figure 4, resilient modulus of stabilized materi-
als after the last freeze-thaw cycle is compared to the
resilient modulus of unfrozen unstabilized original
material. A general trend of higher resilient modulus
when soils are stabilized with different binders even
after freeze-thaw cycles is clearly evident when com-
pared to unstabilized materials without freeze-thaw
 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491 487

cycles. The increase in resilient modulus of the stabi-
lized soil and recycled materials after freeze-thaw
cycles range between 168% and 56% compared to
unfrozen and unstabilized material. Two fly ash stabi-
lized materials (RPM and RAP) were an exception to
this trend and showed minor decrease in resilient
modulus after freeze-thaw cycling in a range of −2%
and −15% compared to unfrozen/unstabilized original
material. These results also indicate that LKD and
CKD stabilized materials show particular resistance to
freeze-thaw cycling.
4.2.2 Effect of soil type
Figure 5 presents the normalized resilient modulus
of a fine-grained soil (i.e., Lawson) and several
coarse-grained materials (RSG, RPM, and RAP) sta-
bilized with different binders as a function of
freeze-thaw cycles. In the stabilized fine-grained soil,
resilient modulus decreased 35% in the first
freeze-thaw cycle then the decrease appears to slow
with increasing freeze-thaw cycles. The reduction in
modulus during the first freeze-thaw cycle can be at-
tributed to freezing temperatures dominating and re-
tarding the cementation reactions, thereafter both
freezing and thawing temperatures compensate each
other and the variation in stiffness becomes minimal.
Overall, the modulus dropped about 50%–65% in 12
freeze-thaw cycles.
Stabilized coarse-grained materials show a steady
drop in modulus ranging between 2% to 42%, with an
average of 24.5% with 12 freeze-thaw cycles. Data
reported by Simonsen et al. (2002) on unstabilized
coarse-grained soils indicated a reduction in resilient
modulus after one freeze-thaw cycle in the range of
19% to 50%, with an average of 34%. Less reduction
in stiffness were obtained in this study with more
freeze-thaw cycles compared to their data. This can be
attributed to the stabilization effect of fly ash. The
reduction of stiffness during the first 1–4 freeze-thaw
cycles can be attributed to the retardation of poz-
zolanic reactions.

Figure 3 Normalized resilient modulus vs freeze-thaw cycles for (a) Lawson + fly ash, RPM1 + fly ash, RPM2 + fly ash,
and RAP + fly ash, (b) RSG1 + fly ash + lime kiln dust, and (c) RSG2 + cement kiln dust
488 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491

Figure 4 Comparison of the resilient modulus of unstabilized original materials not subjected to freeze-thaw with the resilient
modulus of stabilized materials with different binders after 5 or 10 freeze-thaw cycles

Figure 5 Normalized resilient modulus vs freeze-thaw cycles for (a) fine-grained soils and (b) coarse-grained soils/materials

4.3 Impact of freeze-thaw cycles on unconfined
compressive strength
4.3.1 Effect of binder type
Figure 6a shows that materials stabilized with
self-cementation fly ash display a consistent decrease
in unconfined compressive strength (quN) at N
freeze-thaw cycles normalized by unconfined com-
pressive strength without freeze-thaw cycling (qu0) as
a function of freeze-thaw cycling. Similar trends were
also observed with materials stabilized with CKD
binder in Figure 6b. However, the reduction rate in
strength of CKD stabilized materials during
freeze-thaw cycling are four times lower on average
than those stabilized with self-cementation fly ashes.
This difference could be attributed to the higher CaO
content of CKD materials (54%) as compared to the
CaO content of self-cementation fly ashes (<25.8%)
as given in Table 2.
The strength of soils/materials stabilized with ce-
ment and lime did not change significantly when these
samples were subjected to freeze-thaw cycling (Fig-
ures 6c and 6d). Nevertheless, the results presented in
 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491 489

Figures 6c and 6d indicate that strength of materials
stabilized with cement and lime decreased 40% to
60% and 60%, respectively with freeze-thaw cycling.
Based on these results it can be concluded that CKD
binder among other binders used in this study seems
to provide superior performance against freeze-thaw
cycling although it may result in unacceptable volume
increase.
4.3.2 Effect of soil type
The effect of grain size on freeze-thaw suscepti-
bility is presented in Figure 7. Fine-grained soils are
identified with open symbols and the coarse-grained
soils/materials are identified with closed symbols.
Figure 7 shows that strength of both fine-grained soils
and coarse-grained soils decrease with freeze-thaw cy-
cling. Moreover, fine-grained soils appear to be more
susceptible to freeze-thaw cycling than coarse-grained
soils. On average, the unconfined compressive strength
of fine-grained soils stabilized with different binders
dropped approximately 50% with the highest reduction
occurring at 1–3 freeze-thaw cycles.
Overall, strength of stabilized coarse-grained soils
is affected less from freeze-thaw cycling than the
strength of stabilized fine-grained soils (Figure 7).
Furthermore, the highest reduction in strength of sta-
bilized coarse-grain soils were measured at
freeze-thaw cycles higher than five. These results in-
dicate that there are some differences in the
freeze-thaw behavior of fine-grained and
coarse-grained soils/materials.
Figure 8 shows the impact of freeze-thaw cycling
on normalized unconfined compressive strength of
stabilized natural soils in comparison to recycled ma-
terials (RPMs, and RAP). As presented in Figure 8,
strength of both stabilized natural soils and recycled
materials decreases with freeze-thaw cycling. The
average reductions in unconfined compressive
strength of all soils and recycled materials are ap-
proximately 50%–55%. The average rate of decrease
of strength of stabilized natural soils is 2% per
freeze-thaw cycle while this average reduction rate is
5% for stabilized RPMs and RAP materials.

Figure 6 Normalized unconfined compressive strength (quN/qu0) vs freeze-thaw cycles for specimens prepared with
(a) self-cementation fly ash, (b) off-spec fly ash, (c) cement, and (d) lime
490 Tuncer B. Edil et al., 2015 / Sciences in Cold and Arid Regions, 7(5): 0482–0491
Figure 7 Normalized unconfined compressive strength
(quN/qu0) vs freeze-thaw cycles for fine-grained soils and
coarse-grained soils/materials. Open symbols: Fine grained
soil; Closed symbols: Coarse grained soil/material
5 Conclusions
An overview of various research studies undertaken
to investigate the effects of freeze-thaw cycles on vol-
ume change, stiffness, and strength of chemically stabi-
lized natural soils and recycled materials is presented.
The conclusions are summarized as follows:
1) Materials stabilized with cement kiln dust are
the most susceptible mixtures to volume increase
during freeze-thaw cycling and should be scrutinized.
Fly ash stabilized materials have small volume
change.
2) For all the mixtures, resilient modulus decreas-
es in response to freeze-thaw cycling. Results of this
study show that this reduced modulus of stabilized
soils/materials after freeze-thaw cycling is still mostly
higher than that of unstabilized/unfrozen original
soils/materials. The exception to this was observed for
recycled pavement material and recycled asphalt
pavement stabilized with fly ash, which showed slight-
ly lower modulus. Overall, binders reviewed in the
current study improve the stiffness of the materials un-
der winter conditions. Cement kiln dust appears to be
the most resistant binder against freeze-thaw effects.
3) Unconfined compressive strength of all
soil-binder mixtures also decreases with freeze-thaw
cycles. Materials stabilized with cement kiln dust
were the least impacted from freeze-thaw cycling.
However, no consistent relationship was observed
between strength of soils stabilized with cement and
lime and number of freeze-thaw cycles.
4) The average rate of decrease in strength of sta-
bilized natural soils was 2% per cycle while the aver-
Figure 8 Normalized unconfined compressive strength
(quN/qu0) vs freeze-thaw cycles for natural soils and
recycled materials. Open symbols: Natural soils;
Closed symbols: RPM and RAP
age reduction rate was 5% per cycle for stabilized
recycled materials.
5) Fine-grained soils are more susceptible to
freeze-thaw cycling than coarse-grained soils. The
largest reduction in strength of stabilized fine-grained
soils occurred at the first freeze-thaw cycle. Stabilized
coarse–grained soils were affected less from
freeze-thaw cycling than the stabilized fine-grained
soils.
It is safe to recommend that an average 50% re-
duction in unfrozen modulus of chemically stabilized
soils/materials is appropriate for freeze thaw effects in
design in seasonally cold climates.
Acknowledgments:
The authors acknowledge the Recycled Materials
Resource Center (http://rmrc.wisc.edu) for its support
of research and outreach of recycled materials and
industrial byproducts for use in construction. En-
dorsement by RMRC or the fly ash suppliers is not
implied and should not be assumed.
References:
AASHTO T307, 2007. Determining the Resilient Modulus of Soils
and Aggregate Materials. American Association of State
Highway and Transportation Officials. Washington D.C.,
USA.
Acosta HA, Edil TB, Benson CH, 2003. Soil Stabilization and
Drying Using Fly Ash. Geo Engineering Report No. 03-03,
Geo-Engineering Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison,
Madison, WI.
Arora S, Aydilek AH, 2005. Class f fly ash amended soils as high-
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17(6): 640–649.
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