Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Southern African Transport Conference 7-10 July 2014 "Leading Transport into the Future", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.
The occurrence of mica in soils is reported to significantly affect the engineering properties
of materials including plasticity index and compacted density. The objective of this paper is
to present the results of an investigation into the influence of mica on the compactability
and moisture content of a cement treated weathered gravel material. Free mica
(muscovite) was added in predetermined percentages by mass to neat granitic gravel (G5)
and specimens subjected to a series of standard laboratory tests. The results show a
steady decrease in compacted density and increase in water absorption of the cement
treated gravel with increase in mica content greater than 2% mica content.
