Mechanical characteristics of soft clay treated with fibre and cement

Abstract

In this study, the influence of three types of fibre-polypropylene, recycled carpet and steel-on the mechanical properties of cement-treated clay is investigated. Cement-treated clay specimens were prepared with cement contents of 5%, 10% and 15% by weight of dry soil, and cured for 14 days. To investigate and understand the influence of different fibre types and contents, three different percentages of fibre content were adopted. The results of unconfined compression tests on 90 cylindrical samples of cement-treated clay with varied cement and fibre contents are analysed to discern the relationships between these parameters and the key mechanical properties, including unconfined compressive strength and stiffness of treated soil. Furthermore, indirect tension test results of a further 90 treated soil samples have been used to determine the influence of fibre and cement content on the tensile strength of the treated soil. The fibre reinforcement increases the peak compressive strength. The addition of fibres increases the residual strength and changes the brittle behaviour of the cement-treated clay to that of a more ductile material. The tensile strength of the cement-treated clay is increased by adding carpet and steel fibres, but small quantities of polypropylene fibres do not influence the tensile strength.

Effects of Nano-Carbon Reinforcement on the Swelling and Shrinkage Behaviour of Soil

“…It is also observed that NCs are effective in reducing shrinkage and expansive strain of expansive soil specimens (such as S2 and S3) which experience large volume changes due to moisture content variations. Reduction in the volumetric shrinkage strain may be due to the increase in the strength of reinforcement in the soil, particularly the tensile strength as proposed by (Fatahi et al 2012). Other researchers have also found that the porosity and the total pore volume in reinforcement concrete decrease with the inclusion of CNTs (Siddique & Mehta 2014).…”

Behavior of cement-stabilized fiber-reinforced pond ash, rice husk ash–soil mixtures

“…A number of research studies on fiber-reinforced soils have recently been carried out through triaxial tests, unconfined compression tests, CBR tests, direct shear tests, and tensile and flexural strength tests (Freitag, 1986;Maher and Gray, 1990;Al-Refeai, 1991;Fatani et al, 1991;Maher and Ho, 1994;Ranjan et al, 1996;Nataraj and McManis, 1997;Consoli et al, 1998Consoli et al, , 2002Consoli et al, , 2005Santoni et al, 2001;Kumar et al, 2005;Casagrande et al, 2006Casagrande et al, , 2007aCasagrande et al, , 2007bKim et al, 2008;Park, 2008;Bera et al, 2009;Fatahi et al, 2012;Divya et al, 2014;Li et al, 2014;Anggraini et al, 2014;Botero et al, 2015). One of the primary advantages of randomly distributed fibers is the absence of potential planes of weakness that can develop parallel to oriented reinforcement (Maher and Gray, 1990).…”

Influence of discrete fibre reinforcement on the uniaxial compression response and seismic wave velocity of a cement-stabilised sandy-clay

“…In the past few decades, several studies have been conducted to assess the structural benefits of reinforcing soils with randomly distributed discrete fibres. Uniaxial and triaxial compression and direct shear behaviour have been thoroughly analysed (Al-Refeai, 1991;Chauhan et al, 2008;Consoli et al, 2010Consoli et al, , 1999Consoli et al, , 1998Diambra et al, 2010;Fatahi et al, 2012;Hamidi and Hooresfand, 2013;Lovisa et al, 2010;Michalowski and Cerm ak, 2003;Miller and Rifai, 2004;Ranjan et al, 1996;Tang et al, 2007;Yetimoglu and Salbas, 2003). Polypropylene fibres are predominantly used for soil reinforcement, with fibre contents ranging from 0.05% to 3%.…”