Abstracto

IMPROVEMENT IN CBR VALUE OF SOIL REINFORCED WITH JUTE FIBER

H. P. Singh, M. Bagra

Use of natural fibre in civil engineering for improving soil properties is advantageous because they are cheap, locally available, biodegradable and eco-friendly. The natural fiber reinforcement causes significant improvement in tensile strength, shear strength, and other engineering properties of the soil. Over the last decade the use of randomly distributed natural and synthetic fiber has recorded a tremendous increase. Keeping this in view an experimental study was conducted on locally available (Doimukh, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh, India) soil reinforced with Jute fiber. In this study the soil samples were prepared at its maximum dry density corresponding to its optimum moisture content in the CBR mould with and without reinforcement. The percentage of Jute fiber by dry weight of soil was taken as 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75% and 1%. In the present investigation the lengths of fiber was taken as 30 mm, 60 mm and 90 mm and two different diameters, 1 mm and 2 mm were considered for each fiber length. The laboratory CBR values of soil and soil reinforced with Jute fiber were determined. The effects of lengths and diameters of fiber on CBR value of soil were also investigated. Tests result indicates that CBR value of soil increases with the increase in fiber content. It was also observed that increasing the length and diameter of fiber further increases the CBR value of reinforced soil and this increase is substantial at fiber content of 1 % for 90 mm fiber length having diameter 2 mm.. Thus there is significant increase in CBR value of soil reinforced with Jute fiber and this increase in CBR value will substantially reduce the thickness of pavement subgrade.