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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.
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