The Belgian Code of Good Practice for Soil Treatment with Lime and Hydraulic Binder Update

In 2004, the Belgian Road Research Centre published some documents concerning soil treatment with lime and/or cement to make them suitable for use in road applications: a code of good practice including theoretical and practical knowledge and 3 practical guides to specific applications (soil improvement for trench backfills, soil stabilization for capping layers and soil improvement for earthworks and road formations). 5 years later, it was necessary to update those documents to take the new European standards and the growing use of hydraulic road binders (HRB) into account. Some aspects, related to pre-study and requirements, were also reviewed based on the experience. At the same time, a fourth practical guide has been published concerning the treatment of concrete industrial ground floors bases. This document introduces the reaction modulus k (Westergaard modulus) as in situ control criterion. A distinction is made between normal bases and high performance bases for which the requirements are higher. During the pre-study (required to define the binder and the dose), the bearing capacity and other properties are checked by specific tests. Some tests are specific for lime or for hydraulic binders and the criteria vary according to the type of base.