Sustainable Method for Liquefaction Mitigation Using Natural Coir Fibers

Liquefaction in sands is of grave concern for geotechnical engineers to ensure the stability of soil structures subjected to dynamic loadings like earthquakes. Grouting, installing seismic drains, and compaction are the traditional liquefaction remediation methods. These techniques are expensive, energy and resource intensive. Finding sustainable substitutes for these methods is essential. This study proposes the usage of naturally available coir fibers for liquefaction mitigation. Coir fibers have extremely high tensile strength and are abundantly available as a major byproduct from the coconut business and have the potential to replace other materials and techniques for controlling liquefaction in sands. The liquefaction response of clean sand and coir fiber reinforced sand is assessed by performing stress-controlled cyclic simple shear tests on sand mixed with 0% and 0.5% coir fiber content by weight of sand. Test results show that coir fiber increases the liquefaction resistance of sand to a great extent. Further, shaking table tests were performed to validate and verify the proposed method for a large-scale application. Coir fiber is found to be a potential sustainable natural material for liquefaction mitigation in sands.