Influence of Jute Reinforcement on the Stiffness Capacity of Cohesionless Pavement Geomaterials

In this work, cohesionless pavement geomaterial reinforced with multi-layers of georeinforcement as jute fibres has been studied. The present work is carried out on unreinforced soil and jute fibre-reinforced soil to investigate the strength and stiffness capacity of pavement geomaterials using the California bearing ratio (CBR) test. The number of layers, optimum depth, and placement of the georeinforcement in geomaterial are investigated. The embedment depth of jute fibre, i.e. D/2, D/3, and D/4 in single, double, and triple layers has been optimized using CBR values. A novel concept of stiffness capacity along with penetration factor is introduced to evaluate the strength of the unreinforced and jute-reinforced geomaterial. The test results demonstrate that including jute fibre in single, double, and triple layers increases the stiffness capacity of the soil at the optimum depth of D/4. The stiffness capacity at varied input parameters varies from 0.378 to 0.682 at the maximum penetration factor which shows an 80.42% enhancement of strength in pavement geomaterial. The outcome of the present study provides a cost-effective solution to the strength improvement in cohesionless soils for embankment, subgrade, and pavement construction technologies.