Evaluation of Mechanical Properties of Rice Resin as a Sustainable Ground Improvement Material

Rice Resin® is a biomass-sourced plastic material upcycled from discarded inedible rice, such as old rice and broken rice generated by rice factories. Rice resins are plant-based materials, essentially making them eco-friendly. They can reduce CO₂ emissions by almost 30% compared to conventional petroleum-based plastic products. Therefore, the realization of the SDGs can be easily ensured with the utilization of this material. Rice resins are granular materials and therefore can be used as the drainage enhancing materials for soil improvement. The objective of this research is to clarify the physical and mechanical properties of rice resin, which has potential to use as liquefaction prevention (drainage effect) material. For this purpose, particle size distribution test, density test, minimum and maximum density test of rice resins were conducted. Furthermore, a medium-scale triaxial compression and permeability testing apparatus was used to conduct the consolidated-drained (CD) triaxial compression test and the constant head permeability test. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) The shear strength of rice resin is smaller than that of the gravel and larger than that of tire chips, which are currently used as a substitute material for gravel, (2) the volumetric strain of rice resin shows the same shrinkage and expansion as that of gravel, (3) the angle of rice resin is slightly smaller than that of gravel, (4) the permeability of rice resin is similar to that of gravel, making it an effective-drainage material in liquefaction prevention of ground.