

Cemented soils are often seen as non-textbook materials, since they don´t fit into the usual behaviour of transported soils in the light of classical Soil Mechanics theories. The major problem of establishing a mechanical behaviour pattern of cemented sandy soil based on recoiled natural samples is the variability of its fabric and the existence of a dispersion of particulate strength, aggravated by inevitable sampling induced disturbance. The use of artificially cemented soils has been frequently used as a mean to overcome these drawbacks. However, this approach may be criticized due to an important handicap, that is the difficulty of artificially recreating natural microfabrics. Herein, a laboratorial framework performed on Guarda granitic residual soils, integrated in a wider research PhD program (Cruz, 2010) is presented, aiming to study the influence of microfabric in artificially and naturally cemented soils strength and stiffness properties. The program involved an extensive laboratorial testing program performed over remoulded soils of weathered granite mixed with Portland cement under distinct contents. Overall, 50 uniaxial, diametral and triaxial (CID) compression tests with internal or local instrumentation (LVDT) were executed over these admixtures.