Performance of Black Cotton Soil Reinforced with Randomly Distributed Banana Fibers

Abstract

The most significant part of India and a portion of South India are covered with black cotton soil. These soils have high swelling and shrinkage characteristics and low shear strength. Hence, there is always need of improvement in various engineering properties using suitable reinforcement material. Many researchers used various materials to stabilize or reinforced the black cotton soil. For sustainable construction, it is essential to use natural material or material with low pollution capacity satisfying, all parameters of good soil. The use of different natural fibers as soil reinforcement changed various properties of soil. Here, an attempt had been made to reinforced black cotton soil with randomly distributed banana fires. The unconfined undrained triaxial tests and direct shear tests were conducted on black cotton soil (BC Soil) mixed with banana fibers. The fiber content in reinforced specimens varied from 0.5 to 2.0% with an increment of 0.5% by dry weight of soil. The samples were prepared by adding banana fibers at different percentage and with different aspect ratio of, 10, 20 and 30 mm. The MDD and OMC of reinforced soil were determined and the test samples were prepared for respective MDD and OMC of reinforced soil. The results of the experimental investigation of triaxial test and direct shear show that use of banana fiber as reinforcement to BC soil results in significant increase in shear strength. The increase in length of banana fiber shows increase in cohesion by 110–600% and angle of internal friction of 116–227%.