Experimental Study on Geocell and of Fibre Reinforced Soil Sub-grade Under Static and Repetitive Load

Abstract

Development of transportation infrastructure will provide an overall development of country’s economy. This is achieved by providing better quality and longevity of roads. To improve the quality of pavement structure, soil sub-grade properties play a vital role. As known fact that soil sub-grade handles the vehicular wheel load transmitted from the pavement structure. A few soils when used in pavement construction do not provide desirable properties. The performance of such soils can be improved with reinforcement of non-traditional materials. In this paper, an attempt is made to enhance the properties of silty soil in two stages. In the first stage of study, soil is reinforced with basalt fibre (non-traditional material) with varying length (i.e. 25, 50 and 75 mm) and percentages (0.2, 0.4 and 0.6). CBR, resilient modulus (MR) and UCS values were enhanced with reinforcement of basalt fibre for 50 mm length and 0.4%, when compared with natural soil. In the second stage of study, lateral confinement is achieved by providing plastic PET bottles of varying diameter of 50, 80 and 100 mm in the form of geocell. These PET bottles are provided at 1/3H and 1/2H. CBR and resilient modulus (MR) values were observed to be higher for 80 mm diameter PET bottles provided at 1/3H.