The fitting curves can accurately reflect the effect of binder content
and curing timeon UCS, and also the growth rate of strength at different
curing times for solidified sediments. For cement-solidified sediments
in Fig. 6(a), the longer is the curing time, the greater is the strength
ratio. The curves lying above the straight line σ/σ0 = 1 indicate that
cement addition ameliorates significantly the UCS of sediments.
For lime- and lime plus fly ash-solidified sediments in Fig. 6(b) and
(d), the curves locating below the straight line σ/σ0 = 1 reveal that
higher lime or fly ash amount cannot improve the mechanical performance
but weaken the UCS performance. Fig. 6(c) and (d) shows that,
except SD6C3CV, the slope of fitting curves of fly ash-treated sediments
approaches to zero and the strength ratio almost does not change or
changes very slightly with curing time.
However, as previously described, four different reference mixes are
used to evaluate the variation of strength ratio and the fitting curves
cannot show the magnitude of strength value of each mixes at certain
curing time. If it is required to compare the strength magnitude and
changing trend of strength for different binder-treated mixes, a sole
reference mix such as SD3C or SD3L should be adopted for the calculation
of strength ratio of all mixes before drawing the curves between
strength ratio and curing time.