Although soil-lime treatment has been successfully used for a long time, the mechanisms behind the clay soil-lime reaction remain insufficiently understood until today. Improvements provoked by lime addition are observed immediately on the soil texture that passes from a plastic state to a coarser state. Strength gain, which corresponds to the advancement of the pozzolanic reaction, develops as a long-time process. Strength development of lime stabilized clays has been extensively studied but investigations on lime consumption progress are scarce. Experimental results related to lime consumption progress, strength development, and pH evolution over time in lime-treated bentonite samples are used in this contribution to shed some light on the clay-lime reaction mechanisms. Results obtained indicate that the short-term and long-term reactions take place sequentially. The short-term reaction occurs at constant pH, lasts about 3 days producing only a limited strength gain. The long-term pozzolanic reaction develops much of the strength gain, which occurs in line with lime consumption and is accompanied by pH value decrease starting from the pH corresponding to the initial consumption of lime (12.65) going down to 11.5 after a long curing time. Based on the results obtained, a strength and lime consumption relationship similar to that that has been shown to exist between strength and the volume of the reaction products formed in cements is defined. XRD results do not show cementing minerals’ peaks but pozzolanic reaction occurrence is evidenced by decrease of the peaks of montmorillonite and silica-based compounds of the studied bentonite.

尽管土壤石灰处理已经成功地使用了很长时间，但是直到今天，对粘土土壤石灰反应背后的机理仍然不甚了解。立即观察到由石灰添加引起的改良，其土壤质地从可塑性状态转变为较粗糙状态。强度增加，对应于火山灰反应的进展，是一个长期的过程。石灰稳定粘土的强度发展已得到广泛研究，但对石灰消耗量进展的研究却很少。在石灰处理的膨润土样品中，与石灰消耗进度，强度发展和pH随时间变化有关的实验结果可用于阐明粘土-石灰反应机理。获得的结果表明短期和长期反应是依次发生的。短期反应在恒定的pH值下发生，持续约3天，仅产生有限的强度增加。长期的火山灰反应会产生大量的强度增加，这与石灰的消耗相一致，并且伴随着较长的固化时间，pH值从对应于最初的石灰消耗量（12.65）的pH开始下降到11.5，pH值降低。 。基于获得的结果，定义了强度和石灰消耗的关系，该关系与已显示在水泥中形成的反应产物的强度和体积之间存在的关系类似。