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Compressive and tensile strength properties of pre-compressed and soaked natural fiber reinforced lime—fly ash stabilised soil

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Abstract

In this study, the effects of pre-compression, fiber inclusions and capillary soaking on the compressive and tensile strength properties of lime-fly ash stabilised soil were investigated. Randomly distributed 25 mm sisal fibers were mixed with stabilised soil at the percentages of 0.25%, 0.5% and 1% by dry mass of the soil. Both unreinforced and fiber composite specimens were subjected to the pre-compression stresses equivalent to 10% and 20% of the strength mobilised by the un-precompressed specimens. The pre-compression stresses were applied after 4h and 24h of accelerated curing at 40°C, after which the conditioned specimens were allowed to continue curing under constant conditions. The results revealed that capillary soaking in un-precompressed specimens caused average compressive strength reduction of 38% and 42% for unreinforced and reinforced specimens, respectively. Pre-compression caused loss of strength of 20% for both tension and compression due to fiber slippage and debonding at the fiber-matrix interface. Soil-fiber composite specimens performed better in compression than in tension however, there existed proportionality between tensile and compressive strengths beyond optimum strength indices \(\left(\frac{\text{q}_{\text{t}}}{\text{q}_{\text{u}}}\right)\) 0.1 to 0.17 for both pre-compression scenarios. Fiber inclusions endowed soaked stabilised soil with higher average compressive residual strength (90%) than tensile residual strength (50%). Fiber inclusions significantly improved ductility of the composite in both compression and tension due to the deformability of natural fibers.

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  1. Civil Engineering Science Department, University of Johannesburg, P.O Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa

    Innocent Kafodya & F Okonta

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  1. Innocent Kafodya
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Correspondence to F Okonta.

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Peer review under responsibility of Chinese Society of Pavement Engineering.

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Kafodya, I., Okonta, F. Compressive and tensile strength properties of pre-compressed and soaked natural fiber reinforced lime—fly ash stabilised soil. Int. J. Pavement Res. Technol. 13, 497–509 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42947-020-0074-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42947-020-0074-4

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