Abstract:Sandy soil is a common geotechnical material. To satisfy the mechanical and environmental requirements in engineering, the granulated blast furnace powder (GGBS) as a solid waste discharged by steel industry could replace cement as a soil curing agent. In this study, GGBS was used as curing agent and magnesium oxide (MgO) was used as stimulating agent to reinforce the sand. The influence of curing durations (3, 7, 14, 28, 56 days) and the mixing amount of curing agents (8%, 10%, 12%) as well as the amounts of magnesium oxide (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 40%) on the strength development were analyzed. The results showed that under the same amount of curing agent, the unconfined compressive strength (USC) of cemented sand has no obvious relation with curing age less than 7 days. However, when the curing age was longer than 7 days, the longer the age period, the higher of the sand soil USC. Furthermore, the amount of curing agent is positively correlated with the unlimited compressive strength of sand. Finally, although magnesium oxide dosage could promote the improvement of the unlimited compressive strength, excessive magnesium oxide would inhibit the increase of the unlimited compressive strength in sand.