Mechanical properties of excavated soil waste-based cementitious products at normal condition or after water soaked: A literature review of experimental results

Excavated soil waste is one of the construction wastes generated from building foundation pit excavation, tunnel excavation, channel excavation and other engineering excavations. In order to reuse the excavated soil waste in civil engineering, this paper presents a literature review on the feasibility of using excavated soil waste as fine replacements in cementitious products. With the help of existing experiments reported in the literature, a data-driven analysis was conducted on the mechanical properties of excavated soil-based cement mortar, geopolymer, unfired clay bricks and concrete at normal condition (e.g., room temperature and atmospheric moisture) or after water soaked. The influence of excavated soil replacing river sand (i.e., fine aggregate) or binding materials, curing age, thermal treatment, dry sieving process and stabilization process, etc. on the compressive strength, flexural strength and modulus of elasticity of cementitious materials was discussed. The comparative results show that the excavated soil-based products can achieve acceptable mechanical properties when employing physical approaches (e.g., thermal treatment, sieving and grinding) acting on or mixing stabilizer into excavated soil.