What soils are appropriate for lime stabilization?
Experience has shown that lime will react with medium, moderately fine and fine grained soils. Generally speaking, those soils classified by the Unified System as CH, CL, MH, SM, GC, SW-SC, SP-SC, SM-SC, GP-GC or GM-GC are potentially capable of being stabilized with lime. The extent to which the soil-lime pozzolanic reaction proceeds is influenced primarily by the natural soil properties. As a general guide, lime stabilization should be considered for soils that have plasticity indices of 10 or greater along with 25% or more of the soil smaller than the number 200 sieve. Particles smaller than the No. 200 sieve (0.074 mm) are considered to be silt (0.002 to 0.06 mm) or clay (< 0.002 mm). Lime is generally the stabilizer of choice for soils that have plasticity indices above 30 and greater than 25% material passing the number 200 sieve.
