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ABSTRACT: A series of experiments were carried out to investigate the behavior of cement-
stabilized fiber-reinforced clay with different cement and fiber contents. Three groups of tests were
conducted, on: (1) reinforced samples with four different fiber contents (0.5%, 0.75%, 1% and
1.25%); (2) cement-stabilized samples with three different cement contents (5%, 8% and 10%); and
(3) cement-stabilized, fiber-reinforced samples with the same fiber contents as the uncemented
reinforced samples. Unconfined compression tests (UCT) were carried out on the uncemented
samples. These UCT tests were also conducted on the cement-stabilized samples with and without
fiber inclusions after 3, 7, 14 and 28 days of curing time. The results indicated that the inclusion
of fibers within uncemented and cement-stabilized soil caused an increase in the unconfined
compressive strength and axial strain at failure, and changed the brittle behavior of the cement-
stabilized soil to a more ductile behavior. It was also shown that the mechanical characteristics of
the soil–cement–fiber mixtures are functions of fiber content and curing time.
REFERENCE: Estabragh, A. R., Namdar, P. & Javadi, A. A. (2012). Behavior of cement-stabilized clay
reinforced with nylon fiber. Geosynthetics International, 19, No. 1, 85–92. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1680/
gein.2012.19.1.85]
attractive qualities of randomly distributed fibers is the soil-cement. A review of the above literature indicates that
absence of the potential planes of weakness that can whereas a large amount of work has been done on
develop parallel to the oriented reinforcement (Maher and cemented sandy soil reinforced with fibers, the work on
Gray 1990; Shukla et al. 2009). clay soil is limited, and also the effect of the weight of
Soil-cement is a material that results from the chemical fibers on the strength of clayey soil-cement has not been
stabilization of soil, and is composed of pulverized soil, adequately investigated.
Portland cement and water. When cement is added to It is the aim of this work to study the mechanical
cohesive soils such as silt and clay, shrinkage micro-cracks behavior of reinforced soil and reinforced soil-cement
are developed in the material owing to the loss of water with different cement and fiber contents through a series
content during drying or hydration of the cement. The of experimental tests in order to quantify the effect of
tensile strength of the material usually prevents these cement and fibers on cohesive soil.
cracks, but if the tensile strength is not sufficient, these
cracks will develop, particularly under loading, and da-
mage could result. Kuhlman (1994), Ashraf and George 2. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY
(1999) and the American Concrete Institute (ACI 1990)
also studied the mechanism of this kind of cracks. The 2.1. Material properties
American Concrete Institute (ACI 1990) presented various 2.1.1. Soil
methods for overcoming these cracks, one of which was to The soil that was used in this experimental work was a
use a lower cement content with this kind of soil. How- clay soil. The physical and chemical properties of the soil
ever, in some cases, where the desired strength of the soil- are summarized in Tables 1 and 2. The soil is composed
cement is high, greater cement contents may be required. of 32% clay, 61% silt and 7% sand. The optimum water
This could result in a high amount of heat from hydration content in the standard compaction test was 17.5% at a
of the cement, and the production of excessive micro- maximum dry unit weight of 17.2 kN/m3 :
cracks owing to high shrinkage strains. Some previous
studies have shown that the inclusion of fibers in soil- 2.1.2. Cement
cement improves the tensile strength and reduces the The cement used in the experiments was Portland type 2.
potential for shrinkage cracks (e.g. Sobhan et al. 1999; It had a specific gravity of 3.15 with Blain fineness of
Gaspard et al. 2003; Khattak and Alrashidi 2006). approximately 4200 cm2 /g. The properties of the cement
Gaspard et al. (2003) concluded from the results of are shown in Table 3.
unconfined compression tests (UCT) on sandy soil-cement
samples with inclusion of 0.1% and 0.2% fibers that the 2.1.3. Fibers
addition of fibers does not increase the strength signifi- Nylon fibers were used as the reinforcement material in
cantly. Researchers such as Park (2009), Izawa et al. this work. They were manufactured from polypropylene in
(2009) and Consoli et al. (2010, 2011) also studied the filament form. They have excellent resistance against
behavior of cemented sandy soil with and without fiber acids, alkalis, corrosion and deterioration in the soil. The
reinforcement, and concluded that inclusion of fibers fibers used were 20 mm long and 0.28 mm in diameter.
causes an increase in the strength of samples. Studies on The fiber strength characteristics were determined through
the behavior of reinforced cemented clay soil are limited tensile strength test according to ASTM D 2256 and
to the work that has been carried out by Khattak and ASTM D 2101. The physical and mechanical properties of
Alrashidi (2006) and Tang et al. (2007). They concluded the fibers are shown in Table 4, and Figure 1 shows a
that the inclusion of fibers can improve the strength of the photograph of loose nylon fibers.
Consistency limits
Compaction characteristics
density. After compaction, the cement-treated samples soil. However, the optimum water content increased and
were stored in a curing cabinet at constant temperature the maximum dry density decreased with increasing ce-
and relative humidity according to ASTM D 1632 for ment content. The reason for this behavior could be
curing times of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. flocculation and agglomeration of the clay particles by
cation exchange, which leads to an increase in voids
volume and a decrease in unit weight. Also, a greater
3. TEST PROGRAM specific surface of cement leads to greater water absorp-
The unconfined pressure testing was carried out according tion and an increase in the optimum water content with
to ASTM D 1633 on samples 50 mm in diameter and increasing cement content (Kumar et al. 2007), although
100 mm long. A compression testing machine was used for the soils tested in this study the variation of optimum
for loading, and the samples were loaded at an axial water content is relatively small.
displacement rate of 1 mm/min. The load was recorded The stress–strain curves obtained from the unconfined
continuously, and the tests were continued until the pressure tests on the natural soil and the reinforced soil
unconfined compressive strength was determined. with different fiber contents are shown in Figure 2. It can
be seen from this figure that the inclusion of fibers
moderately increased the peak strength of the soil. The
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION effect of 0.5%, 0.75%, 1.0% and 1.25% fiber on the
The results of compaction tests on the soils with different increase in peak strength is 8%, 15.7%, 18.5% and 21%,
compositions are shown in Table 5. For the soil with fiber respectively. The peak strength increased with increasing
inclusions, the maximum dry density and optimum water fiber content up to about 1%, beyond which further
content decreased with increasing fiber content. The increase in the fiber content did not have a significant
results of compaction tests on soils with different composi- effect on the strength. It can be seen that the fiber-
tions showed that by increasing the fiber content the reinforced (uncemented) soil exhibits a limited improve-
optimum water content changed from 17% to 16.6%, and ment in the ductility of the soil (ductility is defined as the
the maximum dry density from 17.2 kN/m3 to 16.2 kN/m3 : maximum axial strain of the stress–strain relationship)
The variations of optimum water content for samples compared with the natural soil. In other words, the
with cement only (soil-cement) were minor (17.16% for inclusion of fibers makes the strain-softening less pro-
5% cement and 17.35% for 10% cement), but the maxi- nounced, and any failure less dramatic. The figure also
mum dry density decreased from 17.7 kN/m3 (17.7 kN/m3
for soil with 5% cement) to 17.1 kN/m3 (17.1 kN/m3 for 400
Table 5. Optimum water content and maximum dry unit weight for soil with different
compositions
Soil (%) Cement (%) Fiber (%) wopt (%) ªdmax (kN/m3 )
shows that the initial stiffness of the soil does not appear interfaces. In clay soils, the hydration of the cement
to be significantly affected by addition of the fibers. These develops a strong linkage between the minerals and
findings are in agreement with results reported by Tang et aggregates to form a strong fabric, and prevents the
al. (2007) and Attom et al. (2009). The reinforced soils particles from sliding over each other. As a result, the
reached peak stress at axial strains between 2% and 4%. It cement not only reduces the soil plasticity; it also in-
can be concluded that, with greater fiber inclusion and creases the shear strength, and reduces the water-holding
replacement of a portion of the soil by fibers, the soil capacity of the clay. These observations indicate that the
becomes softer with lower strength, and as a result the improvement in the maximum strength of cemented soil is
samples fail at higher strains. Many clay particles are highly dependent on the percentage of cement inclusions,
attached to the fiber surface, which contribute to the bond and on curing time. It can be clearly seen from Figure 4
strength and friction between the fibers and the soil in the that the compressive strength after 3 days of curing is
mixture (Tang et al. 2007). Consequently the strength is about 50% of that obtained after 28 days for 5%, 8% and
improved. The fibers cannot slide easily in the soil, owing 10% cement.
to the bonding: therefore, they can bear tensile stresses. Figures 5, 6 and 7 show typical stress–strain curves for
The strength gain of fiber-reinforced soil is due to the the soils with 0.75% fibers and 5%, 8% and 10% cement
transfer of stress from soil to fibers, caused by the at curing times of 3, 7, 14 and 28 days. These figures
interlocking of particles and the bonding between fibers show that the peak stress and initial stiffness are increased
and soil. As a result, the improvement in the behavior of with increasing curing time. For example, the strength of
clayey soil when mixed with fibers is attributed to the the soil with 5% cement and 0.75% fibers was 650 kPa
effect of the fiber properties, which enhance the mechani- after 3 days of curing and 1278 kPa after 28 days, showing
cal behavior of the soil (Maher and Gray 1990; Ranjan et an increase of 97% (Figure 5). This indicates the signifi-
al. 1996). cant effect of curing time on the strength of cemented soil
Typical stress–strain curves for the natural soil and the with fibers. The results also show that the ductility of the
soil-cement samples with 5%, 8% and 10% cement and a samples decreased with increasing cement content; the
curing time of 7 days are shown in Figure 3. It can be failure of the sample with 5% cement after 7 days’ curing
observed that the addition of cement and the resulting time occurred at 1.4% axial strain, whereas the samples
cementation of the soil particles increase the initial slope
(stiffness) of the stress–strain curve. The peak stress, 3000
stiffness and brittleness of the cement-treated soil increase
with increasing cement content. These results are consis-
Compressive strength (kPa)
2500
tent with findings were reported by Herzog and Mitchell
(1963), Croft (1967), Bahar et al. (2004) and Tang et al.
2000
(2007).
The effects of cement on the stabilization of soil can be
divided into two stages: reduction of plasticity, and 1500
2000 1500
Soil
Soil ⫹ 5% cement
Soil ⫹ 8% cement
Compressive stress (kPa)
1500
Soil ⫹ 10% cement
1000
1000
500
500 3 days
7 days
14 days
28 days
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3
Strain (%) Strain (%)
Figure 3. Stress–strain curves for soil and soil-cement with Figure 5. Stress–strain curves for soil with 5% cement and
different percentages of cement for 7 days’ curing time 0.75% fibers for different curing times
Geosynthetics International, 2012, 19, No. 1
90 Estabragh, Namdar and Javadi
2500 3000
2000 2500
Compressive stress (kPa)
1500 Soil
1000 Soil ⫹ 8% cement
Soil ⫹ 8% cement ⫹ 0.5% fibers
3 days 1000 Soil ⫹ 8% cement ⫹ 0.75% fibers
7 days Soil ⫹ 8% cement ⫹ 1% fibers
500 Soil ⫹ 8% cement ⫹ 1.25% fibers
14 days
28 days 500
0
0 1 2 3 4 0
0 1 2 3 4
Strain (%)
Strain (%)
3000 3500
Compressive stress (kPa)
2500 3000
1500 2000
Soil
1500 Soil ⫹ 10% cement
1000 3 days Soil ⫹ 10% cement ⫹ 0.5% fibers
7 days Soil ⫹ 10% cement ⫹ 0.75% fibers
14 days 1000 Soil ⫹ 10% cement ⫹ 1% fibers
500 Soil ⫹ 10% cement ⫹ 1.25 fibers
28 days
500
0
0 1 2 3
Strain (%) 0
0 1 2 3 4
Strain (%)
Figure 7. Stress–strain curves for soil with 10% cement and
0.75% fibers for different curing times Figure 10. Stress–strain curves for fiber-reinforced cemented
soil with 10% cement and different fiber contents for
with 8% and 10% cement at the same curing time failed 28 days’ curing time
at 1.06% and 1.02% strain, respectively, (Figures 5, 6 and
7). These results are consistent with those reported by
Kaniraj and Havanagi (2001), who concluded, from ex- ment, and fiber inclusion of 0.5%, 0.75%, 1% and 1.25%
perimental tests on samples of fly ash–soil–cement mix- for 28 days’ curing time. These figures indicate a limited
tures, that the inclusion of fibers can change the behavior increase in ductility with increasing fiber content. Figure
of the mixture from brittle to ductile. 8 shows that the failure of the soil-cement (with no fiber
Figures 8, 9 and 10 show the stress–strain curves for reinforcement) occurred at about 1.6% axial strain,
fiber-reinforced soil-cement with 5%, 8% and 10% ce- whereas the sample with 1.25% fibers failed at about
2.4% strain. This is more obvious in Figure 10 for samples
2500 with 10% cement and different fiber contents. This figure
shows that the failure of the soil-cement was at an axial
2000 strain of 0.9%, but for the sample with 1% fibers the
Compressive stress (kPa)
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