Influence of Textile Polyester Waste Fiber on Strength and Subgrade Properties of High to Medium Plastic Clay

In India, a major portion of total land area is covered by high to low plastic clayey soil. Of this, a large proportion is expansive soil. Structures constructed over this expansive soil may be severely damaged due to its high swell-shrinkage behavior. So, such soils need to improve its strength, durability and to prevent erosion. Various studies have been carried out on expansive soils to improve its properties. Soil stabilization is one of the promising techniques used to improve the geotechnical properties of soil and has become the major practice in construction engineering. This study works to evaluate the improvements in properties of CH–CI soil of south region of Surat by adding textile polyester waste fiber. For improvement of engineering properties, this fibers are used as reinforcement by varying percentage of 1, 2 and 3%. The soil parameters such as shear strength, subgrade characteristics tested under UCS and CBR. These values are compared to that of a control specimen. Author critically remarked as CH soil has different characteristics as compared to CI soil under this test. Experiment results show this fact that using textile polyester waste fibers leads to increasing shear strength, dry density, CBR value and reduction in plasticity index and free swell index in CI soil as compared to CH soil. Analysis of result obtained from experiments may be proving the effectiveness of this product to construction site having this both types of soil. The expansive soil can be successfully stabilized by the combined action of fibers with soil.