Effect of different fibre reinforcement type to the shear strength of soft soil at varying moisture condition

Abstract

The utilisation of discrete fibre in the soil reinforcement technique to overcome the problems of soft compressible soil are investigated in this paper. Two different type of fibre is used herein, i.e. polypropylene and plastic fibre. Shear strength of soils is highly affected by moisture conditions. In practice, a laboratory investigation conducted to determine the shear strength of soil is prepared at optimum moisture content. However, at field conditions, the actual water content may vary. The effect of moisture variation with respect to optimum moisture content is investigated in this study. Unconfined Compressive Strength Test was carried out to study the effect of fibre type, fibre content and soil moisture condition. The test results indicated that the reinforced soil using polypropylene fibre provides higher strength increment compared to plastic fibre. The highest strength was achieved at 0.15% additional of polypropylene fibre in the dry moisture condition.