SOILS IMPROVEMENT FROM CONCEPT TO COMPLETION

Soil Stabilisation

Soil stabilisation is an established earthworks process, pioneered by Powerbetter over many years, on projects ranging from airport runways and taxiways; motorway and trunk road pavement infrastructures; residential, retail, and leisure developments.

 

Its principle application has been to improve soil subgrades for use in road pavement constructions, but further developments have led to the use of soils modification and stabilisation techniques being incorporated within a wide range of commercial construction uses.

 

The process is now widely recognised as an effective means of constructing pavements and foundations with significant savings in construction costs and programme time. Unsuitable soils can be modified to improve their properties. Treatments to modify soils bulkfill, capping and to subbase specifications are available.

 

Benefits

 

The Powerbetter Mix-in-Place process is carried out in single or multiple layers, of which thicknesses can range between 150mm and 350mm or more. The process is undertaken using purpose built soils mixing machines, with computer control of mixing depths, moisture addition and of all the important stages of the process. Technological advances have paved the way for the widening uses of the stabilisation process in infrastructure construction, with a wide range of beneficial applications available, on sites from less than an acre to those which are measured in hundreds of hectares.

 

The treatment processes can be as simple as modifying saturated soils (to restore optimum moisture content) to treatments for use as an engineered fill, as capping and/or subbase replacement, or achieve CBM status. What is not always understood is the importance of the management of moisture in the soil - i.e. both in identifying the initial natural water content of the soil, and then in any water added to modify the moisture or to hydrate binders. This monitoring and control is only possible due to the advances in soil mixer design - the agricultural approach to stabilisation offers none of the benefits of modern technology, and there is no guarantee of a technically proficient and durable end product.